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The CRISIS == =n 


DETROIT 


BATTALION CHIEF WESLEY WILLIAMS 
(Highest ranking Negro fireman in the nation—See page 286) 


LABOR TROUBLE IN JAMAICA 


GEORGE PADMORE 


JAMES WELDON JOHNSON 


MEMORIAL TRIBUTES. FROM THE NATION 












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September, 1938 


HOWARD UNIVERSITY 


WASHINGTON, D. C. 


Chartered by Act of Congress, March 2, 1867 


72nd Year of service begins 
September 27, 1938 


National and. International in Scope 
and Influence. 


Applications Now Being Received for 
School Year, 1938-39. 

10,259 Graduates from All Departments 
of the University. 

Nine Schools and Colleges: 





Graduate 


School, College of Liberal Arts, College 
of Medicine, College of Dentistry, Col- 
lege of Pharmacy, School of Engineer- 
ing and Architecture, School of Mu- 
sic, School of Law, and School of 


Religion. Also, Summer School. 


Registration, First Semester 

September 24, 1938 
Registration, Second Semester 

February 6, 1939 
For Announcements of the several 
Schools and Colleges, and for applica- 
tion for Permit to Register, Address: 

REGISTRAR 
Howard University, Washington, D. C. 








Fisk University 


THE COLLEGE 
THE MUSIC SCHOOL 
GRADUATE DEPARTMENT 
Accredited by the Association 
of American Universities 


| 
| 
| 
| 


For Further Information, Address 


The Dean, FISK UNIVERSITY 
« Nashville, Tennessee e 











DILLARD 
UNIVERSITY 


NEW ORLEANS 


An Institution for Men and Women Who Desire 
To Learn and to Lead—to Learn With 
Thoroughness and to Lead With 
Wisdom and Understanding 
For Information address 


THE REGISTRAR 





BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY 


Well established business seeking individual having $500 ise 
$1,000 to invest. This additional capital necessary for 
on. 


For information address 
NEGRO ART ADVERTISING camry 
2077 Seventh Avenue ew York, N. Y. 








COLLEGE AND 
SCHOOL NEWS 






Back to the class rooms go the fol- 
lowing members of the faculty of How- 
ard University’s College of Liberal 


Arts: Prof. Sterling A. Brown, Asso- 
ciate Professor of English and recipient 
of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Crea- 
tive Writing; Ralph J. Bunch, Profes- 
sor of Political Science and recipient of 
a Social Science Research Scholarship 
for the pursuit of African Studies in 
Colonial Administration; Prof. William 
L. Hansberry, Assistant Professor of 
History, who has been engaged in the 
study of Anthropology, at the Univer- 
sity of Oxford, England; Miss Lois M. 
Jones, instructor in Art, who has been 
studying design in Paris, France; Pro- 
fessor Madeline W. Kirkland, Assistant 
Professor of Home Economics, who has 
been studying on her doctorate, at the 
University of Minnesota; Dr. J. Leon 
Shereshefsky, Professor of Chemistry, 
who has been in attendance at the sym- 
posium of the Faraday Society at Man- 
chester, England, worked in the library 
of the University College in London 
for a period of six weeks, and was also 
engaged in research in the Department 
of Colloid Science at Cambridge Uni- 
versity, England; and Dr. Valaurez B. 
Spratlin, Professor of Romance Lan- 
guages, who has been engaged in study 
and travel in Cuba, Mexico, and the 
Argentine. 

Added to the faculty are: Dr. John 
L. Jones, instructor in A at a B.S. 
and M.S. from the University of Cali- 
fornia, and a Ph.D. from Stanford Uni- 
versity; Mrs. Ella Haith Weaver, sub- 
stitute instructor in English for Mrs. 
Leona B. Dudley, on sabbatical leave of 
absence. Mrs. Weaver is A.B. in Drama 
from Carnegie Institute of Technology 
and M.A. in Speech from the University 
of Michigan. 

The following members of the faculty 
of the College of Liberal Arts received 
Ph.D. degrees at the close of the 1937- 
38 academic year: Louis A. Hansbor- 
ough, instructor in Zoology, Harvard 
University; William A. Hunton, in- 
structor in English, New York Uni- 
versity, and John W. Lovell, Jr., 
assistant professor of English, Univer- 
sity of California. 


R. O’Hara Lanier, Dean of the Hous- 








Talladien. Collage 


Approved College of 
Arts. and Sciences 


EXCELLENT MUSIC DEPARTMENT 


Modern Curricula Individual Advisers 
Address the Dean 


TALLADEGA COLLEGE 


TALLADEGA 
EARLY APPLICATION 


ALABAMA 
ADVISABLE 





DR. CHARLOTTE HAWKINS BROWN 


will lead your Teen Age Youth 
into wholesome, happy lives 
enriched by music, art and drama 


PALMER MEMORIAL INSTITUTE 


SEDALIA, N. C. 


Religiously sincere, educationally efficient, 
culturally secure 








Atlanta University 


ATLANTA, GEORGIA 


A Graduate School of Arts and 


Sciences Offering Work Leading to 
the Master’s Degree 


Class A Rating with the Association of 


Colleges and Secondary Schools of the 
Southern States 
For Bulletin, 


Address THE REGISTRAR 








St. Mary’s School 


VIRGINIA UNION 


UNIVERSITY 
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 


Composed of Wayland College for men, 
Memorial College ior 


MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE 
Class “A” Medical College with Departments of 
Medicine, Dentistry, Dental Hygiene and a Nurse Training School 


REGISTERED BY NEW YORK BOARD OF REGENTS 
There is a Great Demand for Dentists. 
Por catalogue and information regarding courses 
Write JOHN J. MULLOWNEY, M.D., President of Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn. 


Mention THE CRISIS to Our Advertisers 















MORGAN COLLEGE 


Hillen Road and Arlington Avenue 
Baltimore, Md. 


GENERAL STATEMENT—Morgan is a college of 
liberal arts which trains high school teachers, pre- 
pares students for the study of medicine, dentistry, 
law, graduate study; home economics, commerce, music 
and general cultural courses are available. 


THE REGULAR SESSION—The regular school session, 
with classes held on the campus, provides courses of 
study leading to the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of 
Science Degrees. 


THE SUMMER SESSION—The summer session is 
operated for six weeks, primarily for the benefit of 
public school teachers, 

AFTERNOON AND EVENING CLASSES—The de- 
mands for teacher-in-service training have caused 
Morgan College to offer afternoon, evening and Satur- 
day courses. 

INFORMATION—For catalogue or detailed information 
write to the Registrar. 





Berean School 


Co-Educational Day and Evening Schools 
VOCATIONS 


BUSINESS SCIENCE SCHOOL 
NEEDLE CRAFT ARTS 


38th Year, October 3, 1938 
DAY BUSINESS SCIENCE SCHOOL 


( Aceredited by Committee on Standards Pennsylvania 
Approved Business Schools) 


BLANCHE WILLIAMS ANDERSON, Principal 
Enrollees Limited — Register Now 
WRITE THE REGISTRAR 
1926 South College Avenue 
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 





HE ATLANTA 
SCHOOL of 
eSOCIAL WORK 


Member of the American Association 
of Schools of Social Work 

Gives training in every branch of technical 

work and in addition offers special pre 


tion for the special problems which Solvent 
social workers in Negro Communities. 


Special Emphasis Placed on Public Welfare 
Administration in Classroom and Field Work 
Practice. 


For Further Information Address the 
Director 


Forrester B. Washington, A.M. 


247 Henry St., Southwest 
Atlanta, Georgia 








Johnson C. Smith University 


CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA 


(Under Presbyterian Auspices) 
A Co-educational Institution of High Rating 


THREE UNITS 


College of Liberal Arts, Junior College for 
Women (Barber-Scotia, aoere N. C.) and 
Theological Se 
Women admitted to oo nn pper years of 
the College of Liberal A 


Highly Trained Faculty and First Class 
Equipment 










































For information write 
H. L. McCROREY, President 











CRISIS SCHOOL DIRECTORY 


ton College for Negroes, Houston, 
Texas, has been named assistant to 
Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, Director 
of the Division of Negro Affairs, Na- 
tional Youth Administration. A North 
Carolinian, Mr. Lanier received his 
early training at the Biddle University 
Academy (now Johnson C. Smith Uni- 
versity), and graduated from Lincoln 
University (Penna.) in 1922, where he 
was student assistant in the library and 
in English. He has taught at Tuskegee 
Institute and Florida A. & M. College, 
Tallahassee, Fla. He has a Master’s 
degree from Leland Stanford University 
in college administration and vocational 
guidance, and was a Rosenwald Fellow 
in vocational guidance and placement at 
Harvard University for one year. He 
was formerly president of the Florida 
State Teachers Association and is now 
president of the National Association 
of College Deans and Registrars. 

The Atlanta School of Social 
Work becomes affiliated with Atlanta 
University on September 1, according 
to an announcement made by President 
Rufus E. Clement, the university’s head, 
and Forrester B. Washington, director 
of the school. Students of the School 
who satisfactorily complete the pre- 
scribed two-year course will be awarded 
the Master of Social Work degree by 
the University. This change is in ac- 
cordance with the modern trend toward 
coordination of educational programs 
and with the recent agreement of the 
member schools of the American Asso- 
ciation of Schools of Social Work that 
all member institutions become affiliated 
with some university. The School will 
retain its separate corporate existence 
and financial responsibility but will 
operate in all essential respects as the 
School of Social Work of the Univer- 
sity, will be called the Atlanta Uni- 
versity School of Social Work, and its 
faculty members will become members 
of the university faculty. It will oper- 
ate in accordance with the requirements 
of the statutes of the University. 


Berean School (Philadelphia, Pa.) 
held its always interesting annual edu- 
cational symposium at 8:30 p.m. on 
June 6. The topic was: “What Can 
Be Done With Aggressors.” Mrs. 
Edwin J. Johnson, President of the 
Pennsylvania Branch of the Women’s 
International League for Peace and 
Freedom, presided. Participants were: 





CHARLES L. MAXEY, Jr. & CO. 


BLIC ACCOUNTANTS 
CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL AND STUDIO 
Accountancy, Mathematics, Business, Etc, 

We specialize in opening, closing and auditing 
books of corporations as well as making income tax 
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and accountants to look after the interests of cor- 
Tespondence students. 

85 West 118th St., New York City 




























MOnument 2-3493 


Mention THE CRISIS to Our Advertisers 














Wesley I. Howard, F.T.C.L. 


Concert Violinist-Composer 


(Graduate Trinity College of Music, London) 


Address: Hampton Institute, Va. 


LINCOLN UNIVERSITY 


Approved by 


College and University Council of Penna. 
American Medical Society and Associa- 
tion of Colleges and Preparatory Schools 
of the Middle States and Maryland. 


For complete information write 


REGISTRAR 


Lincoln University, Chester Co., Penna. 


THE AGRICULTURAL and 
TECHNICAL COLLEGE 


GREENSBORO, N. C. 


( Ca-educational ) 
Agriculture, Atte and Sciences, Engineer- 
ing and Industrial Arts, Business Admin- 
istration and a Trade School offering 
training in ten vocations. 


¥F. D. Bluford, President 


1932 


1866 
RUST COLLEGE 


POLICY—Co- nena 
hour credit system, Ldberal Arts; 
Elementary and x, Courses in Education; 
Pre-Medical, ¢ Economics, Music and Business. 
vateaat—tuieae ghee 


For further information write: 


L. M. McCoy, President 
Holly Springs, Mississippi 


Knoxville College 


KNOXVILLE, TENN. 


Beautiful Situation and Healthful Location. 
Best Moral and Spiritual Environment. 
Splendid Intellectual Atmosphere. 

Noted for Honest and Thorough Work. 


Acredited for 
’ Certificates State Board 
Home-like Dormitory Life with Careful Supervision 
Live Athletic and Literary Interests 
COURSES: College and Music 
Expenses Very Reasonable 
Catalog and other literature sent free upon request 
Address: KNOXVILLE COLLEGE 
KNOXVILLE, TENN. 





Cheyney Training School 
for Teachers 


A STATE art's COLLEGE 
CHEYNEY, PA. 


A Pennsylvania cat Sachin College offering 
professional courses as follows: 


i—Elementary Education Degree 
(Primary, Grades 1-3) 
2—Elementary Education . . . ° B.S. Degree 
(Intermediate, Grades 4-8) 
3—Home Economics B.S. Degree 


(Elementary and High School 
4—Industrial = ° : 
tary and High Se 


Elemen| 
Tuition Foes to Residents of Pennsylvania 
Graduation from a standard four year high 
red for admission 
or furt her information and catalog, writ 
Lesvit INCKNEY HILL, President RHEYNEY, PA. 
_ mcmama re 





The Crisis 


mw omdn 


September, 1938 


THE Y. W.C. A. TRADE SCHOOL 


Complete Courses Preparing for a Variety of 
Positions in 


Secretarial or Business Occupations 
aking and Other Dress Trades 
Household Employment 
Beauty Culture Trades 
French Pleating and Cleaning Industry 
Garment M e ration Trades 
Millinery, Art and Novelty Trades 
English, Cultural Courses and Music School 
for Self-Improvement 
Offered as full-time or part-time day or evening, 
or as short unit courses 


Emphasis on Placement 


178 W. 137th Street New York, N. Y. 
Audubon 3-2777 


HAMPTON INSTITUTE 


HAMPTON, VIRGINIA 
A Standard College 


Its ‘‘Education for Life’ includes, 
among other things, 


TRAINING FOR MEN IN Agriculture, Education, 
Building Construction, Library Science, Business, 
Music, Trades 


TRAINING FOR WOMEN IN Business, Library 
Science, Education, Music, Home Economics, Nursing 


Summer School Each Year 


On or before June 1, of each year, students who wish 
to enter in the Fall should have their principals file 
oh Hampton forms the necessary credentials. They 
should’ send their applications as soon as possible to 
Secretary, Committee on Admissions, Hampton Insti- 
tute, Hampton, Va. 


TRAVELERS HOTEL DIRECTORY 


Carry This With You When You Travel 
to Secure Up-to-Date Accommodations 


CALIFORNIA 


CLARK HOTEL AND ANNEX 
1824 Central Avenue Los Angeles, Calif. 
Dining Room—Grill and Bar 


MICHIGAN 


HOTEL OAKEMERE 
and Cottages 
1, 2 and 3 Rooms on the Island 
Virgil L. Williams, Mor. 


Phone 9049F3 Idlewild, Mich. 


NEW JERSEY 


THE WASHINGTON HOTEL 
Every room an outside room with running water, 
reasonable rates. Excellent food. 
Phone 591 


12 Sixth Street Ocean City, N. J. 


PENNSYLVANIA 


ROADSIDE HOTEL 
A. 8. Jones (Himself), Prop. 
514 South 15th Street 
Bell ‘Phone Philadelphia, Pa. 


OHIO 


WARD APARTMENT HOTEL 

Where Courtesy, Hospitality and Quietness Prevail 
Daily and weekly rates reasonable 

4113 Cedar Avenue Cleveland, O. 


TOLEDO WORKING GIRLS HOME 
A Comfortable Home for Girls and Women. 
Reasonable Rates. Rooms by Day or Week. 
Transients Welcome 


635 Dorr Street Toledo, O. 


VIRGINIA 


MOUNTAIN VIEW HOUSE 


Colored Tourists. Guests by Day, Week-end or 
woe. Old Virginia Ham. Gorgeous Mountain 
cenery. 


Route 250. 14 miles west of Charlottesville, Va. 


Miss Anna F. Broadnax, faculty Wil- 
mington (Del.) High School; Miss 
Sophia H. Dulles, member Pennsyl- 
vania Committee of Total Disarmament ; 
Mrs. G. Edward Dickerson, President, 
Women of Darker Races Association ; 
Mrs. Florence Williams Potts, Society 
of Friends. 


Howard University has appointed 
Chauncey Ira Cooper, acting dean of its 
College of Pharmacy. Born in St. Louis, 
Mo., Mr. Cooper has a degree from the 
University of Minnesota, taught Phar- 
maceutical Chemistry at Meharry Medi- 
cal College from 1927 to 1932, and has 
been teaching at Howard since 1935. 
He has completed all work for a Ph.D. 


The Seventh Annual Baptist Confer- 
ence for Ministers and Christian 
Workers closed at Storer College on 
July 21. It was the most outstanding 
conference of its kind held so far. 
Conferees came from New Jersey, 
Maryland, District of Columbia, West 
Virginia and Virginia. 


Forty-six graduates received bachelor 
degrees from West Virginia State Col- 
lege at the close of the summer session 
on August 12. This makes a total of 
142 graduates for the session 1937-1938. 
Prof. Harry W. Greene, Director of the 
Department of Education of State Col- 
lege was the principal speaker at the 
graduation exercises. 


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Write or call the WALKER COLLEGE 
nearest you for further information 


NEW YORK, N. Y.—239 W. {25th St. 
WASHINGTON, D. C.—1i306 You St., N. W. 
ST. LOUIS, MO.—2337 Market St. 

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INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—617 Indiana Avenue. 
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of MUSIC 
850 St. Nicholas Ave. (near 153rd St.) 
Established 1902 


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from beginning to finish. Diplomas awarded— 
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CHICAGO, ILL.—4703 §. . 
DETROIT, MICH.—602 Farnsworth St. 
LOUISVILLE, KY.—709 W. Walnut St. 
BIRMINGHAM, ALA.—415 17th St., No. 


Mention THE CRISIS to Our Advertisers 





The Crisis 


THE CRISIS 


Founded 1910 
REG. U. 8S. PAT. OFF. 


A Record of the Darker Races 


ROY WILKINS, Editor 


ADVISORY BOARD 


J. E. Spingarm Dr. Louis T. Wright 


Volume 45, No. 9 Whole No. 333 


CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 19338 


COVER 
Battalion Chief Wesley Williams of the New 
York city fire department 


LABOR TROUBLE IN JAMAICA 
By George Padmore 


YOUNG COLORED AMERICA AWAKES 


By Juanita E. Jackson 


JAMES WELDON JOHNSON 
Brief Biography 


Tributes by Mayor LaGuardia, J. E. Spingarn, 
Walter White, and William Pickens 292-294 


Tributes from the Nation’s Press 295-299 
FROM THE PRESS OF THE NATION 
EDITORIALS 


ALONG THE N.A.A.C.P. BATTLEFRONT 
News from the branches and youth councils. 302-307 


BOOK REVIEWS 


Tue Crisis was founded in 1910. It is published monthly at 69 Fifth 
Avenue, New York, N. Y., by Crisis Publishing Company, Inc., and ts 
the official organ of the National Association for the Aicmemamens of 
Colored People. The subscription — is $1.50 @ year or 15¢ a copy. 
Foreign subscriptions $1.75. The date of expiration of each subscription 
ts printed on the wrapper. When the subscription is due a blue renewal 
blank is enclosed. The address of a subscriber may be changed as often 
as desired, but both the old and new address must be given and two 
weeks’ notice is necessary. Manuscripts and drawings relating to colored 
people are desired. They must be accompanied by return postage, and 
while Tue Crisis uses every care it assumes no responsibility for their 
safety in transit. Entered as second class matter November 2, 1910, at 
the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879, and 
additional second class entry at Albany, N. Y. 

The contents of Tue Crisis are copyrighted. Copyright 1938 by The 
Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. All rights coven 


Lewis Gannett Walter White 


THE COVER 


On July 28, Captain Wesley Williams, the only Negro 
officer in the New York fire department, was promoted to 
the rank of battalion chief at a salary of $5,300 a year. 
Battalion Chief Williams, who is the son of “Chief” 
Williams, head of the station ushers at Grand Central 
Terminal, has been captain of a fire station in downtown 
New York for many years. He is known in the department 
as a quiet and studious person and the library in his 
private quarters in the station contains many volumes en 
the latest methods of fire fighting as well as a consider- 
able library on philosophy. 


NEXT MONTH 


Scheduled for October and other fall issues are an 
article by Norman Macleod on “The Poetry and Argument 
of Langston Hughes;” a piece, “Travelling with Mr. Jim 
Crow” by J. L. LeFlore; an article “There Are No More 
Negroes” by Thomas B. Smith; and “Women of the Cot- 
ton Fields” by Elaine Ellis. There will be, also, a new 
story by Octavia B. Wynbush. 


OUR CONTRIBUTORS 


George Padmore is well known to readers of THE 
CRISIS for his articles on Ethiopia, Africa and world peace 
and on the labor troubles in the British West Indies. He 
lives in- London. 


Juanita E. Jackson has been a member of the staff of 
the N.A.A.C.P. since September, 1935, in charge of the 
work among young people. She has been responsible for 
the organization of youth councils and college chapters of 
the association throughout the country and her article is 
a summary of the growth of that work. Miss Jackson 
resigned from the association as of August 31 to become 
the bride of Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., secretary of the 
Urban League at St. Paul, Minn. 


The photograph of Donald Gaines Murray in the August 
CRISIS was copyrighted by the Afro-American..- 





Sepi 


September, 1938 


Labor Trouble in Jamaica 


ABOR disturbances have broken 
out again in the West Indies. This 
time in Jamaica, the largest and 

best known of the British islands. 

On the eve of the opening of the 
Empire Exhibition at Glasgow, which 
Lord Elgin, the president, informed the 
King and Queen represented a glorious 
contribution to the peace and prosperity 
of the peoples of the Empire, the Ja- 
maica police were shooting and bayonet- 
ting native workers for daring to de- 
mand a living wage. 

Four workers were killed. One of 
them, an old Negro woman, was bay- 
onetted to death when the police at- 
tacked a demonstration of natives at 
Frome, an agricultural community in 
the County of Westmoreland, on Mon- 
day, May 2. Several scores were also 
wounded. Over a hundred were ar- 
rested, and several of them have been 
convicted and sent to prison for peri- 
ods varying from one month to 12 
months’ hard labor. A wave of repres- 
sion is sweeping the island. 

These tragic events marked the cli- 
max of a strike declared by plantation 
laborers employed by the West Indies 
Sugar Company, owned by Messrs. 
Tate & Lyle Limited. 

For months the agricultural workers 
of Trelawney were demanding an in- 
crease of wages to meet the rise in the 
cost of living. Last January 1,500 
laborers refused to harvest the canes 
for the wages offered. 

Unorganized and without experi- 
enced trade union leaders to negotiate 
with the employers, 600 laborers driven 
to despair by hunger, marched to the 
office of Manager Lindo, of the sugar 
factory on Monday morning. The men 
were accompanied by their wives and 
ragged children. 

Their spokesman demanded 4s. 
($1.00) a day for field laborers and 
higher rates for skilled artisans such as 
carpenters and mechanics employed in 
the factory. Although the company has 
been making tremendous profits in re- 
cent years, the manager refused the de- 
mands of the men, offering a flat rate of 
2s. (50¢) for unskilled and 3s. 6d. 
(87¢) for skilled labor. If the men 
refused to accept these terms, construc- 
tion work would cease. The crowd was 
addressed by its leaders and the slogan 
“A dollar a day or no work” was taken 
up. The temper of the men was rising. 
They formed groups, and arming them- 
selves with sticks and tools, attacked 


By George Padmore 


The dark-skinned citizens of 
the British Empire in the West 
Indies—first in Trinidad and 
now in Jamaica—are being told 
by British bullets and bayonets 
that they cannot agitate for 
relief from slave wages on the 
sugar plantations 


the office and beat up the European 
staff. 

All the time the police had been 
standing by, and on the arrival of a 
fresh crowd, fixed bayonets were 
ordered and men were prodded out of 
the yard. Unarmed, the crowd took to 
throwing stones, which was followed 
by a warning from the police. The Riot 
Act was read and shots were fired over 
the heads of the strikers. More stones 
were thrown, and the next volley, last- 
ing for ten minutes, was directed 
straight at the men, women and chil- 
dren, who by that time numbered over 
a thousand. Many were wounded, and 
four workers were killed. One of them, 
an old Negro woman, was bayonetted 


Market Day in Jamaica 


to death. The crowd went wild, and 
rescuing as many of the wounded as 
they could, they retreated into the 
fields setting the cane on fire. The man- 
ager and his staff fled from the scene, 
but were later rescued by the police and 
brought to Kingston in disguise. Among 
the workers 93 arrests were made. Sev- 
eral of them have been convicted for 
rioting and sent to prison for periods 
varying from one to 12 months’ hard 
labor. 

This disturbance was not an isolated 
one. Since its occurrence a general 
strike has taken place in Kingston. 
Simultaneously with the celebration of 
Empire Day in England comes the news 
that the city scavengers had gone on 
strike and garbage had been left un- 
collected for days. Factories are closed 
and shops and offices have been forced 
to shut. All transport services have 
ceased, and a dockers’ hold-up has 
paralyzed shipping. The governor of 
the island, Sir Edward Denham, noted 
for the ruthless manner in which he 
crushed the Bathurst workers and put 
down the seamen’s strike when he was 
Governor of Gambia, is adopting the 
same firm methods against the Jamai- 
can workers. There have been more 
killings, more woundings, and more ar- 
rests, including two labor leaders, Bus- 
tamante and Grant. He has stated that 
he will use the military, if necessary, to 
maintain essential services. Meanwhile, 
the cruiser Ajax, renowned for its 
similar mission to Trinidad, has been 
ordered to Jamaica, to intimidate the 
workers so desperately struggling to 
force a betterment of their conditions. 


Historical Background 


As bad as conditions are in Trinidad, 
in Jamaica they are much worse, for 
unlike Trinidad with its petroleum and 
asphalt to supplement agriculture, Ja- 
maica is entirely agrarian. The island’s 
economy is absolutely dependent on the 
export of bananas, coffee, ground nuts, 
sugar and its by-product rum, pineap- 
ples and other tropical fruits. Further- 
more, there is a population problem. 
In proportion to its size—4,450 square 
miles, Jamaica is more thickly peopled 
than many European countries now de- 
manding colonial expansion. It has a 
population of 1,138,558, about 290 to 
the square mile. 

The majority of the inhabitants are 
Negroes, the descendants of slaves 








288 





brought from Africa. There is also a 
large colored or half-caste population, 
which constitutes the upper middle class. 
The whites, numbering about 20,000, 
are the real masters of the colony. 


Historically speaking, Jamaica is one 
of the oldest sections of the Empire. 


Cromwell annexed it from Spain in. 


1655 and since then it has been the 
happy hunting ground of British im- 
perialists. First the buccaneers who 
made Port Royal their headquarters, 
from where they raided the neighbor- 
ing French and Spanish colonies, and 
later the Sugar Kings, who imported 
the slaves. Not without reason. Winston 
Churchill, speaking at a banquet given 
to the Duke of Kent by the West 
Indian sugar planters at the Dorchester 
Hotel in London July 20, 1937, re- 
minded his audience: 


“The West Indies two hundred years 
ago bulked very largely in the minds 
of the people who were making Britain 
and making the British Empire. Our 
possession of the West Indies, like 
that of India—the Colonial Plantations 
and Developments, as they were then 
called—gave us the strength, the sup- 
port, but especially the capital, the 
wealth, at a time when no other Euro- 
pean nation possessed such a reserve, 
which enabled us to.come through the 
great struggles of the Napoleonic wars, 
the keen competition of the commerce 
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu- 
ries, and enabled us not only to acquire 
this world-wide appendage of posses- 
sions which we have, but also to lay 
the foundations of that commercial and 
financial leadership which, when the 
world was young, when everything out- 
side Europe was undeveloped, enabled 
us to make our great position in the 
world.” 


After the emancipation of the slaves 
in 1834, for which the Jamaica planters 
received £6,161,927 compensation out 
of the £20,000,000 voted by Parliament, 
these landlords started Indian and Chi- 
nese coolies to work their plantations. 


This system of indentured labor was 
later discontinued, for during the latter 
part of the last century and the begin- 
ning of the present, the island suffered 
terribly from hurricanes and earth- 
quakes which ruined many of the planta- 
tions. Some of these derelict estates 
were bought out by the Government 
to settle refugees upon them. This is 
how the black peasantry came into be- 
ing. About 140,000 acres of land were 
divided into lots of 5 acres and is under 
peasant cultivation, chiefly bananas, but 
large-scale agriculture is still predomi- 
nant. Of the 837,000 acres still in the 
hands of big proprietors, 40,091 acres 
represent sugar cane; 6,265 coffee ; 40,- 
074 coconuts; 72,909 bananas; 17,774 
ground nuts; 964 cocoa; 2,008 sisal. 








The balance represents fruit and other 
miscellaneous crops. 


The Creole or local born whites and 
absentee landlords form the plantocracy. 
Many of the former are also engaged 
in trade and commerce. They and their 
agents dominate the economic and poli- 
tical life of the country. 


Colonial “‘Democracy” 


Democratic government, as practiced 
in England, does not obtain in Jamaica, 
notwithstanding the fact that the island 
has been a British colony for nearly 
three centuries. The imperial authority 
is vested in a Captain-General and Com- 
mander-in-Chief. who receives a salary 
of £5,500 and rules with the aid of a 
Privy Council and a Legislative Coun- 
cil. The latter is partly elected and 
partly appointed. The Governor is the 
President of both Councils. There are 
30 members on the Legislative Council ; 
6 ex-officio, 10 appointed by the Gov- 
ernor, and 14 elected on a _ property 
franchise which makes it absolutely 
impossible for a member of the work- 
ing class to get on the Council. Out of 
a population of 1,138,558 there were 
only 66,000 registered voters in 1937. 
An elected member must have an in- 
come of £200 per annum, which is the 
lowest in the West Indies. For in 
Trinidad the requirement is £400 per 
annum. The result is that the masses 
of the people, who hardly earn more 
than 2s. (50¢) a day, have no constitu- 
tional means of voicing their grievances. 
They are the lesser breed without the 
law. It is therefore not surprising that 
when they can no longer bear their 
burdens they break out in violence. 
“We have spoken in a peaceful way; 
the Government has apparently deaf- 
ened its ears; but sometimes the deaf 
can be made to hear,” recently declared 
the local labor leader in a statement to 
the British Press. 


A special feature of the Jamaica con- 
stitution which is considered one of the 
most liberal in the Colonial Empire, 
provides that any nine of the elected 
members can veto any financial meas- 
ure, while the unanimous vote of the 
14 on other matters can be overridden 
by the ex-officio and nominated mem- 
bers unless the Governor declares that 
such a decision is of vital importance 
to the public interests. In other words, 
the Governor is a hardly disguised dic- 
tator. 


Social Conditions 


Commenting upon the social misery 
and starvation which abound, a Jamai- 
can correspondent writing in The Man- 
chester Guardian of April 8 says: 
“About 50,000 children are roaming the 
country parts, not being able to go to 


The Crisis 


school, chiefly because of lack of food 
and clothing. Things have gone so bad 
that a short time ago hundreds of 
ragged men, women and_ children 
marched to the doors of the prison in 
Kingston, pleading for admittance, su 
that they might get food. ... There 
are at least 75,000 unemployed and the 
majority of those who are employed are 
very little better off for they work on 
empty stomachs.” This is not surpris- 
ing, for the cost of living is far above 
the incomes of the majority of the popu- 
lation. 


According to the latest official report 
on the economic and social conditions 
issued by the Government of Jamaica 
in 1936, “during 1935 a four pound loaf 
of bread cost 1s.4d. (33¢) and a labor- 
er’s pay therefore, provided he worked 
six days a week, was equal to fifteen 
loaves in Government employ and 13 in 
private.” The report goes on to say 
that in 1936 “the cost of living in Jama- 
ca although it is lower by 8.2 points 
than for 1935 (being 121.8 as against 
130), is still considerably above pre- 
war level. Taking a 100 as the index 
figure for the year 1914-15, the index 
figure for 1935 works out at an average 
of 121.8 made up as follows: 


Foodstuffs, local products (yams and 
sweet potatoes), 134.4 per cent.; im- 
ported articles, 119; clothing 123.4; 
miscellaneous, 123.1. Total, 365.5. The 
average is 121.8.” 

At the present time the prevailing 
price of foodstuffs in the island is as 
follows: bread, 8 ounces, 2d; sugar, 
24d to 3d per pound; flour, 14d to 2d 
per pound; rice, 14d to 2d per pound; 
salmon, 6d a pound; herrings, 3d; cod 
fish, 4d; mackerel, 3d; salt beef, 6d; 
salt pork, 9d; condensed milk 44d to 5d 
per tin; margarine, 6d a pound. More 
than 75 per cent. of the people walk 
about bare-footed. They are too poor 
to buy even the cheapest kind of foot- 
wear. 

The Ottawa Agreement has affected 
the standard of life considerably, be- 
cause it has driven cheap Japanese 
goods out of the island, and the masses 
are unable to buy the more expensive 
British commodities. 


The industrial and agricultural work- 
ers are not the only sufferers. High 
taxation, the rising cost of living, with 
the corresponding lowering of the price 
of agricultural products, has hit the 
peasantry considerably. “Thousands of 
small properties have been put up for 
sale for non-payment of taxes. Some 
have been sold.” Those who still man- 
age to hold on to their land are forced 
to seek work on the large plantations in 
order to augment their incomes. The 
small banana growers are completely at 
the mercy of the foreign monopoly 


(Continued on page 308) 








Septe 


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September, 1938 





Young Colored America Awakes 






HE time is February 11, 1938. 
' The crisis is near in the fight for 
passage of the Wagner-Van Nuys 
federal anti-lynching bill in the United 
States senate. In amazing unity and 
strength, young colored America stages 
a dramatic National Youth Demonstra- 
tion Against Lynching, sponsored by the 
youth councils and college chapters of 
the National Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Colored People. 

On Chicago’s Southside, young peo- 
ple parade with flaming torches on slip- 
pery streets, carrying signs which pro- 
test the filibuster in the senate. Halting 
at strategic spots, they hoist an effigy of 
a lynched victim, and proceed to hold 
street corner meetings, distributing post- 
cards to. passersby. 

In New York City, Harlem is the 
scene of a “No More Lynching Parade,” 
under the leadership of the United 
Youth Committee Against Lynching. 
One thousand young people of all races, 
creeds and political beliefs, march side 
by side, wearing black armbands as a 
sign of mourning for the eight victims 
lynched in 1937. Winding up in a mass 
meeting, speakers emphasize the funda- 
mental relationship between the struggle 
for federal anti-lynching legislation and 
the struggle for the ballot, for equal job 
opportunities, for educational equality. 
Youth leaders point out the links be- 
tween the fight against lynching and the 
fight against Fascism. White and black 
youth demonstrate their awareness that 
the problems of Negro youth, seemingly 
unique and individual, have their roots 
in the basic social and economic adjust- 
ments which affect all. 

Even in the South, in Atlanta, Georgia ; 
St. Petersburg, Florida; Houston, 


By Juanita E. Jackson 


Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; Monroe, 
Louisiana; Tulsa, Oklahoma; as well as 
in seventy-two other communities, sim- 
ilar activities are held under the auspices 
of N.A.A.C.P. youth members, and the 
support of thousands of citizens, adult 
and youth, is marshalled. 


Although the filibuster was eventually 
successful in preventing a vote on the 
anti-lynching bill, this isolated instance 
of N.A.A.C.P. youth activity in the 
struggle for the passage of the bill is 
one of the many indications of the 
awakening of Negro youth. 

Throughout the country, considerable 
numbers of Negro youth are becoming 
increasingly conscious of the social up- 
heaval of our times, and their vital in- 
terests in the events that are determining 
their future. With a desperation born 
of dependency, unfulfillment, and injus- 
tice, they are proclaiming their convic- 
tions and asserting their ideals, in spite 
of the warnings of caution from many 
of their “tired elders.” 


Deeply dissatisfied with restricted 
job opportunities, impatient with poor 
schools, stirred to rebellion by the viola- 
tions of civil rights and the lynchings 
which are heaped upon them and their 
families, they are determining that Amer- 
ica can and must mean abundant life, 
ordered liberty, and the right to pursue 
happiness with some prospect of at- 
taining it. 


Want to be Heard © 


Knowing the value~ef organization, 
Negro youth leaders are seeking channels 
of action. Innumerable local youth or- 
ganizations have been formed to meet 
local youth problems. But these are not 








Malcolm Baxter, 
president, Newark, N. J.. 
youth council 


Gloster B. Current, 


president, Detroit, Mich., 
youth council 


Vida L. Milton, 


president, Oklahoma 
youth conference 


Floyd Haynes, 
president, Ohio 
youth conference 





enough. Where effective national adult 
organizations exist, Negro youth are urg- 
ing a chance to be taken into the council 
chambers, to be listened to respectfully, 
to be allowed to make their own contri- 
butions, and at the same time to learn 
from the experiences of their elders. 

In just..such a spirit in July, 1935, 
during the 26th annual conference of 
the N.A‘A.C.P. in St. Louis, Missouri, 
twenty-eight youth members in attend- 
ance there presented_a resolution at the 
final business sessi They recognized 
the power 4and#€ffectiveness of the 
national fighting’ machine that is the 
N.A.A.C.P., and they were asking an 
opportunity to become a more integral 
part of and to have a more vital share 
in the functioning of that organization. 


Although the Association in past years 
had governed the development of junior 
branches, and while there were a few 
active units in various parts of the coun- 
try, there was no coordination of pro- 
gram, no intensive effort to corral the 
interest of youth, because of the limita- 
tion of staff and finances. 

In response to this petition, the na- 
tional board of directors of the Associa- 
tion in March, 1936, approved a tentative 
plan of reorganization of the youth work. 
This provided for the scrapping of jun- 
ior branches and the old age limits of 
14 to 21 years for youth members; the 
organization of junior youth councils 
(12 to 15 years) ; youth councils (16 to 
25 years); and college chapters; and 
the creation of a specific youth program 
within the scope of the objectives and 
program of the Association. With this, 
the youth movement in the N.A.A.C.P. 


(Continued on page 307) 


K. Leroy Irvis 


president, New York 
youth conference 





18&7I—JAMES WELDON JOHNSON—1938 








September, 1938 


James Weldon Johnson 


He was not willed to lute of Orpheus 
Nor laureates from kings of royalty, 
Nor was it his to wear the sardius 

Or lyric power of the Sapphric key. 

Yet, oft he struck the universal note 
Within his dreams; his soul’s imagining ; 
For like an ancient seer, or John he wrote 
In fiery verves of genius, trumpeting. 


What urge almighty gave this poet song 

To sing a litany, an ode, or dirge, 

To lilt these twany strands, these seas 
along 

In travail-trials, breaking surge on surge? 

If it was God, I marvel of the way 

He worked His image in this piece of clay. 


2 
He stood aloof to every sordid thing 


By J. HARVEY L. BAXTER 


What ignis-fatuus beguiled his eye 
While walking where the noblest spirits 
sing 

Off in the wilderness, or fairest sky? 

No siren notes defiled his“ holy lyre 

Or pled their wishes itt his melodies— 

His wings out-spreaded, soaring up, afar ; 
The very world applauding, and the seas. 


Amid old testy bigotries he rose 

And wrestled with gray orders at their 
base 

Up, charging soldierly; amid his foes 

What if they were_of different hair and 
face. 

He met the Devil in the Devil’s track 

And bearded tragedies and swept them 
back ! 


(Three Sonnets) 


3 


He brought a depth, a culture to our arts 

Unmatched, unequaled, and unknown be- 
fore— 

Refining as with fire the baser parts 

Of songs that woke a nation to encore. 

There was a mellow chorus in his voice 

A dashing chivalry of noble mien 

A soul to weep, to battle, to rejoice 

What though within the distance, but the 
DREAM. 


Adieu, Oh, statist, poet, diplomat, 

Arch dean and mighty Nestor of the press— 

Intrepid leader, comrade, DEMOCRAT, 

Lode-Star and grand Cynosure of the 
West. 

Down with the bier, invoke the requiem 

Degree his relics with a diadem! 


AMES WELDON JOHNSON was born in Jack- 

sonville, Florida, on June 17, 1871, the son 

of James and Helen Louise (Dillette) John- 
son. He was an A.B. (1894) and A.M. (1904), 
Atlanta University; a Litt. D. (1917), Talladega 
College, and Howard University (1923). He at- 
tended Columbia University for three years. 


He married Grace Nail of New York City on 


February 3, 1910. 

For several years he was principal of the 
colored high school in Jacksonville, Fla. He was 
admitted to the Florida Bar in 1897, and prac- 
ticed in Jacksonville. 

In 1901 he removed to New York City to col- 
laborate with his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, 
in writing for the light opera stage. The brothers 
met with success in a number of musical plays 
and light operas and songs, among the latter being 
“Under the Bamboo Tree”, “Congo Love Song”’, 
“Maiden With the Dreamy Eyes”, “O, Didn’t He 
Ramble”, “Louisiana Lize”, and a score of others. 
Altogether they collaborated on more than two 
hundred songs. During this period they rewrote 
Drury Lane productions brought from London 
and produced in New York. They also wrote the 
_ plays which opened the New Amsterdam Theatre, 
the Liberty Theatre and the New Amsterdam Roof 
Garden. 

He wrote the English version of the libretto to 
the grand opera, “Goyescas”’, which was produced 
at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, 
in 1915. “The Creation”, a Negro folk poem 
written by him and set to music by a well known 
compeser, was given in New York in 1926 at a 
Chamber Concert in Town Hall with Serge Kous- 
sevitzky, leader of the Boston Symphony Orches- 
tra, as conductor. It had previously been pro- 
duced in Vienna, Austria. 

He was Chairman of the House Committee of 
the Colored Republican Club of New York City 


from 1903 te 1905, and President of the Club * 


from 1905 to 1906. In the latter year he was 


appointed United States consul at Puerto Cabello, 
Venezuela, where he served until 1909 when he 
was transferred to a similar post at Corinto, Nica- 
ragua, serving during the revolution which over- 
threw Zelaya, and during the abortive revolution 
against Diaz. 

He was field secretary of the National Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People 
from 1916 to 1920, and secretary from 1920 to 
1930. His outstanding service during this period 
was the first statistical analysis of lynching, the 
exposure of U. S. Marine terrorism and oppres- 
sion in Haiti, the fight for the Houston Saaees 
(soldiers of the 24th U. S. Infantry sentenced to 
death or life imprisonment for the 1917 uprising 
in Houston), and the memorable Dyer Anti- 
Lynching Bill fight. 

Upon his resignation as Secretary of the 
N.A.A.C.P., in 1930, he became professor of crea- 
tive literature at Fisk University. In 1934 he be- 
came visiting professor of creative literature at 
New York University. 

He was a director of the American Fund for 
Public Service, a member of the Ethical Society, 
a trustee of Atlanta University. He was awarded 
the Springarn Medal in 1925, and the gold medal 
in the Second Harmon Awards in 1927, for 
““God’s Trombones”. 

He was the author of The Autobiography of 
an Ex-Colored Man, 1912, republished, 1927; 
Fifty years and Other Poems, 1917; Self- 
Determining Haiti, 1920; The Book of American 
Negro Poetry, 1921; The Book of American 
Negro Spirituals, 1925; Second Book of Spirit- 
uals, 1926; God’s Trombones, 1927; Black Man- 
hatian, 1930; St. Peter Relates an Incident of the 
Resurrection Day, 1930; Along This Way (an 
autobiography), 1933; Negro Americans, What 
Now?, 1934. He contributed to the Century, 
Harper’s, American Mercury, the Crisis, and to 
the revised edition of the Encyclopaedia Bri- 


tannica, etc. 





By Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia 
of New York, N. Y. 


Broadcast over Station WNYC July 14, 
1938, at 8:00 p.m. 


REATNESS in man is a quality 

that does not know the boundaries 
of race or creed. Where it descends, its 
blessings reach all. That is why the 
whole nation mourns the tragic death of 
James Weldon Johnson. 


I knew James Weldon Johnson, and 
[ am sure that you can all join with me 
in saying “There was a gentle soul.” 

A diplomat, a poet, a teacher, an ad- 
ministrator, a lawyer, composer, novel- 
ist, editor, a fighter for the rights of his 
people and the rights of all, he played 
a major part in the historic develop- 
ments of his span of life. 

To James Weldon Johnson must go 
a large part of the credit for the growth 
and recognition of Negro culture in the 
United States. It was he who brought 
about the breaking down of barriers be- 
tween white and Negro writers, singers, 
painters and others. I need not go intu 
the details of his life. You know them 
too well. 

His people had been emancipated 
from the bondage of slavery when -he 
was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 
1871, but they had entered a new bond- 
age. They had been enshackled by the 
manacles of bigotry. 

James Weldon Johnson led the way 
in the battle for the second emancipa- 
tion—the freeing of the Negro from 
those manacles. 


He was an artist but he believed in 
participation in the struggles of life, and 
not only believed it, but he acted it out 
and led his own people in that struggle. 

His many faceted genius produced a 
wide variety of fine things. One of 
these is a long-remembered song. James 
Weldon Johnson wrote “Under the 


In Memoriam 


Addresses delivered in memory of James Weldon Johnson 


Bamboo Tree” but he didn’t lie lazily 
under it. He went out and worked and 
fought. He won respect and admiration 
in every field of endeavor in: which he 
engaged. 

His poetry will form an everlasting 
monument to his genius and to the crea- 
tive capacity of the Negro people. He 
set down in moving and beautiful verse 
the traditions and folklore of his race. 
He was truly a national poet. 

James Weldon Johnson wrote some 
of the most popular songs of the 1900's. 
He made a brilliant success on Broad- 
way. But he has also written other songs 
that have lived. His “Lift Every Voice 
and Sing” stands forth as a permanent 
inspiration throughout the world. 

As executive secretary of the N.A.A. 
C.P., he was in the forefront of the bat- 
tle for the Negro in every part of the 
United States. His work will always 
stand as a true symbol of man’s fight 
against prejudice, and for the eternal 
values of truth, justice and equity. 

In the final paragraph of his last 
book, “Negro Americans, What Now?” 
published in 1934, he tells us his philoso- 
phy :-— 

“The pledge to myself which I have 
endeavored to keep through the greater 
part of my life is: 

“T will not allow one prejudiced per- 
son or one million or one hundred mil- 
lion to blight my life. I will not let 
prejudice or any of its attendant hu- 
miliations and injustices bear me down 
to spiritual defeat. My inner life is 
mine, and I shall defend and maintain 
its integrity against all the forces of 
hell.”-—so spoke Johnson. 

There is grandeur in this brief and 
poignant declaration—the grandeur and 
bravery of an oppressed people—but it 
is an expression too of a courageous 
and hopeful people. 

It stands out as a challenge to the na- 
tion, and to the world. 


Aaron Douglas mural in Fisk university library 


The Crisis 





By Colonel J. E. Spingarn 
President of the N.A.A.C.P. 


Broadcast over Station WNYC, July 14, 
1938, at 8:00 p.m. 


FIRST met James Weldon Johnson 

at a meeting in a church in Harlem 
twenty-five years ago. He had recently 
returned from Nicaragua, and his novel, 
“The Auto-biography of an Ex-Colored 
Man,” .was winning wide attention. He 
was already forty-one or two. But he 
looked ten years younger, and the light 
of youth, intelligence, and energy shone 
from his eyes; these things and some- 
thing besides that marked him as a man 
for whom fate had great things in store. 
I took to him instantly, and there and 
then decided that we in the National As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Col- 
ored People needed him at our side. Two 
or three years later when we were look- 
ing for a field secretary I persuaded the 
Board of Directors to appoint him to 
the place, and he soon became secretary 
of the Association and its directing 
force. 

Even then he had already had a most 
unusual career. Born in Jacksonville, 
and educated at Atlanta University, he 
became principal of Jacksonville high 
school and a member of the Florida bar. 
Then he had come North to collaborate 
with his brother Rosamond in writing 
for the light opera stage. During the 
first ten years of this century these two 
brothers were the acknowledged leaders 
of American popular song. “The Congo 
Love Song,” “Didn’t he Ramble,” “The 
Maiden with the Dreamy Eyes,” “Under 
the Bamboo Tree,” and a hundred other 
songs were on the lips of almost every 
American and were heard around the 
world. Then Theodore Roosevelt ap- 
pointed him to a consular post, first in 
Venezuela, and later in Nicaragua, where 
he served during two revolutions with 
such ability, courage, and tact that even 














Sep 


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September, 1938 


white southerners were glad to accept 
him as the official representative of his 
country. 

Shortly afterwards he joined the Na- 
tional Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People. Up to that time the 
Association seemed to the public not an 
organization, but a magazine. The genius 
of Dr. DuBois had made our periodical, 
THE Crisis, the voice of the American 
Negro, and whenever anyone thought 
of our Association he thought of THE 
Crisis and Dr. DuBois. We had already 
accomplished other work of real im- 
portance, but it had hardly won for us 
national attention, or perhaps I should 
say that it was submerged in the light 
of Dr. DuBois’ fame. It was James 
Weldon Johnson who gave the Associa- 
tion its national prestige and made it 
bulk even larger in the public eye than 
the magazine we published. It was he 
who bore the burden of the fight for 
the Dyer Anti-lynching bill in 1921 and 
1922; it was he who pushed it through 
the House of Representatives and almost 
over-came the filibuster in the Senate 
that finally defeated it. This poet, this 
song-writer, this novelist, this teacher, 
became the man of action who carried 
through the ideas that Dr. DuBois, the 
thinker, had dreamt and written about. 
He became a great American statesman, 
as great a statesman and as rich in serv- 
ice to his country and the world as any 
of the men who sat in the United States 
Senate or in the cabinets of presidents 
during his ten years as secretary. For 
he was in the forefront of the battle 
to save democracy, a pioneer in that 
struggle which all men are at last cog- 
nizant of, a struggle that has its acid 
test in the treatment we accord to our 
most oppressed minority. 

The task of a secretary of our Asso- 
ciation is so overwhelming that it has 
destroyed the health or peace of mind 
of several incumbents; and illness at 
last forced James Weldon Johnson to 
seek the quieter life of a professor of 
icreative literature at Fisk University and 
‘a visiting professor at New York Uni- 
versity. But even in the stress of his 


“work with us he found time to compile 


"an anthology of American Negro Poetry, 
to edit the Negro spirituals, to write a 
history of the Negro in New York City, 


5, and above all, to write the poems in- 
cluded in 


the extraordinary volume 
called, “God’s Trombones.” A few of 
his earlier and more conventional poems 
+ express aspirations’ deep in the heart of 
the American Negro and will always 
* have an historical as well as poetic in- 
> terest. But in “God’s Trombones” he 
made modern and universal an imperish- 
able mood of a great race. These poems 
purport to be the sermons of an old-time 
Negro preacher, but they revive all that 
the Negro rice has expressed in sermon, 
legend, folktale, and, the great spirituals. 
254 2 


3 Ti. 


Life and death, love and longing, sorrow 
and happiness, as we find them lifted 
out of dialect into racy American speech 
in these poems, belong to humanity and 
not to any one race. After he retired 
from the National Association he found 
time to write his autobiography, “Along 
This Way”, which deserves a place in 
the library of every American and is 
one of the most interesting, and at mo- 
ments one of the most exciting, autobiog- 
raphies of our time. 

James Weldon Johnson was my 
friend for twenty-five years, and there 
never was a time in all those years when 
he did not have the bearing and de- 
meanor that we instinctively associate 
with the great men of the world. It 
was not merely poise, sound judgment, 
intelligence, _self-restraint, courtesy, 
though all of these qualities were his in 
full measure. It was something beyond 
these, some inner reserve of power that 
we call genius for lack of a better word. 


In Memory of James Weldon 
Johnson 


By Ava Scott DUNBAR 


“Untimely death.” I hear them say. 
“No, no,” he would reply, “I kept the pace. 
I lived my life, I played my part; 

I sent a throb to every heart; 

With verse and prose, that did disclose 
The burdens of my race. 


“Untimely? Why for three score years 

I’ve worked, and know my efforts gave a 
ring 

For fairness, justice, and a chance 

That my group through some circum- 
stance ; 

Could thrive and hope, with others cope, 

And lift its voice to sing. 


“Untimely, No, but those who died 

From hands of mobs who hung them to a 
tree. 

Whose. bodies mutilated, burned, 

By terror-striking fiends, who yearn 

To trample men, and try again 

To shame democracy. 


“Untimely? No, God knows what’s best. 
He sent Death on a hurried call, said He, 
‘Quickly snatch his soul and bring, 

Don’t let him feel thy dreaded sting 

He did his best. Now he will rest 
Where there is harmony.’ 


“My brother, fight, and trust, and pray. 
Your burdens will be 4ifted in His time. 
Don’t stop to ask the Maker how; 

But humbly bear oppression now 

Take courage yet, lest we forget 

His promises sublime.” 


God of all races, give us men. 

Men gifted with strong minds that are 
sincere. 

To soothe depressions of the mind; 

Give words that lift, and songs that find 

A faith still deep, to make us keep 

Undaunted year by year. 


293 


The most prejudiced of men melted un- 
der the influence of this power whenever 
it had time and opportunity to operate. 
He lived what he himself urged in his 
poem, “Fifty Years”: 


“No! Stand erect and without fear, 
And for our foes let this suffice: 

We've bought a rightful sonship here, 
And we have more than paid the price!” 


He stood erect and without fear; and 
one of the finest tributes to him ( a trib- 
ute that came direct to me) was uttered 
by a young woman of his own race, who 
said: “He climbed high, and he lifted 
all of us with him.” 


By Walter White 
Secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. 


Broadcast over Station WNYC, July 14, 
1938, at 8:45 p.m. 


F is an incautious thing, perhaps, to 
attempt over so impersonal a medium 
as the radio to speak of the inner and 
more spiritual qualities of a friend. On 
this occasion I dare it only because the 
great American we honor tonight lived 
so full and useful a life—came into per- 
sonal contact, and through his prose and 
poetry, with so many of you who listen 
in at this moment of tribute—that I 


somehow feel that you will know what 
I mean. 


To few men of our time was given 
the privilege of creating and living a 
philosophy of life:such as would merit 
the tribute the distinguished critic, Carl 
Van Doren, paid Mr. Johnson’s “Along 
This Way” when he called it a book any 
man would have been proud to have 
written about a life any man would have 
been proud to have lived. 


Scholar, diplomat, militant champion 
of justice not only for his own people, 
but for all oppressed groups, writer with 
his distinguished brother of songs which 
the whole world has sung and yet sings, 
ambassador of understanding between 
white and Negro Americans, master of 
an exquisite prose style—these are but 
a few of the achievements Mr. Johnson 
crowded into sixty-seven short years. 
But Mayor La Guardia and Mr. Spin- 
garn will speak of Mr. Johnson’s ma- 
terial contributions to American civili- 
zation. I want to pay tribute to him as 
an individual, and as a friend. 


Though I was in almost daily asso- 
ciation with him for more than two 
decades, it took sudden and tragic death 
to make me realize how far-reaching 
was the influence of Mr. Johnson upon 


those with whom he came into contact. 


«On Tuesday I sat at luncheon with 
the dean of a great American university 








294 


who was one of Mr. Johnson’s closest 
friends. As we talked of our friend 
the eyes of this great educator un- 
ashamedly filled with tears as he told of 
what Mr. Johnson’s friendship, his wise 
counsel when faced with difficult prob- 
lems, his understanding, had meant to 
him. 


A few minutes later I was told of the 
tribute of another man who had not the 
public position or education of the uni- 
versity dean. It was instead the com- 
ment of a humble member of Mr. John- 
son’s own race. The tribute he voiced 
might well serve as an epitaph: “Mr. 
Johnson climbed very high and he lifted 
us with him.” 


To those of us who knew and worked 
with Mr. Johnson, one characteristic 
stood out above all others. Though wise 
and sometimes cautious in speech and 
action, never once did he let any com- 
promise or weakness enter into his 
thought or action on any problem great 
or small. With superb and unremitting 
skill he fought valiantly not only against 
the lynching, disfranchisement and pro- 
scription of his own people, but he 
fought also to save those who practiced 
oppression from the corrosive effect of 
the things which they did to others. I 
remember well a great meeting in Car- 
negie Hall when Mr. Johnson declared 
the fight against lynching to be a struggle 
“to save black men’s bodies and white 
men’s souls.” I can think of no better 
expression of Mr. Johnson’s philosophy 
nor a better injunction to America and 
to the world during these days when 
racial hatreds are being fanned into 
flame for sinister reasons than to quote 
to you Mr. Johnson’s poem, “To Amer- 
mat” 


“How would you have us, as we are? 
Or sinking ’neath the load we bear? 
Our eyes fixed forward on a star? 
Or gazing empty at despair? 


“Rising or falling? Men or things? 
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet ? 
Strong willing sinews in your wings? 
Or tightening chains about your feet?” 


A great human being has been taken 
from us but we should not mourn his 
passing but be grateful that he lived. 








By William Pickens 
Director of Branches of the N.A.A.C.P. 


Broadcast over Station WEVD, July 7, 
1938 


HE life of James Weldon Johnson, 

which closed at the age of 67 years 
on the morning of June 26, 1938, in 
tragic death at a railway crossing in 
Maine, is itself an answer to most of 
the questions posed in America about 
the colored people: 


He was a sane, conservative and ag- 
gressive American citizen,—although he 
was from the hindered and handicapped 
race of his country. He was an educator, 
an artist, a writer of stories, a poet, a 
lawyer, an active politician, an office 
holder, and a propagandist. In his song- 
writing days he wrote words which have 
become a national song for his race and 
which is more widely known among the 
common people of color than anything 
else he has done. Its words begin: “Lift 
every voice and sing.” It is a song of 
triumph over obstacles which would 
serve as a national hymn for all of his 
fellow countrymen, irrespective of their 
racial connections. The song itself men- 
tions no race, although it was written 
out of the experiences of the Negro race 
in America. It is more of a universal 
song than any of our other national 
songs. Perhaps in the future men will 
forget that it was written by an Amer- 
ican Negro and all Americans will sing 
it as a hymn of their racial history. 


James Weldon Johnson was born in 
the state of Florida, and educated first 
in the segregated schools of the South. 
He was a product of the old Atlanta 
University, founded by Congregational 
missionary teachers in Georgia. Later 
he studied in northern schools. He be- 
came the principal of the colored high 
school in Jacksonville, Fla., and was ad- 
mitted to practice law in that state. After 
one has all the necessary qualities for 
greatness of life and service, he still 
must have the opportunity. Few colored 
Americans who remain in the South can 
rise above the dead level set by south- 
ern society and custom: if Frederick 
Douglass, greatest colored American of 
the 19th century and one of the great 


Aaron Douglas mural in Fisk university library 


The Crisis 





men of American history, had remained 
in Maryland, he would have died a slave. 
No part of America offers a fair field 
for the fullest development of the genius 
of a black man, but there are some parts 
in which it is possible, and some parts 
in which it is practically impossible. 
Even in athletics, if Jesse Owens or Joe 
Louis had remained in their native south- 
ern states, they would have lived and 
died unknown. Booker T. Washington 
rose up in the South; but his most nota- 
ble achievements were connected with 
influences outside of the section in which 
he was born and which offered him a 
field of work and service. He built 
Tuskegee in the South, but he never 
could have built it of the South alone 


So James Weldon Johnson, educator, 
writer and poet, and his brother, J. 
Rosamond Johnson, musician and com- 
poser, did what everybody was telling 
southern Negroes not to do: They came 
North to find a less impossible field for 
the development of their art and the 
uses of their talents. In the day in 
which Negroes were admitted to the 
theatres simply as black-faced comedians, 
these brothers organized many musical 
comedies and other plays: “Under the 
Bamboo Tree,” “Congo Love Song,” 
“Louisiana Lize” and others. By 1903 
the talents and tastes of James Weldon 
Johnson led him into politics. He joined 
a local political club that was affiliated 
with the dominant political party, and 
in 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt 
appointed him U. S. Consul at Puerto 
Cabello, in Venezuela, and in 1909 at 
Corinto in Nicaragua. At the close of 
Roosevelt’s administration he returned 
to New York City and took up theatri- 
cal and literary work, being now able 
to translate Spanish productions into 
English. 

He struggled along in the poor busi- 
ness of entertainment, song writing and 
contributions to a New York Negro 
paper until he was elected as field sec- 
retary of the National Association for 
the Advancement of Colored People 
(1917). Up until 1920 the executive sec- 
retaries of the Association had been 
white persons, but in that year the last 
white secretary, Mr. John Shillady, who 

(Continued on page 308) 











Sept 


September, 1938 


The Nation Pays Tribute 


dead in a tragic accident on June 

26 last, stood in the great succes- 
sion of Negro leaders in this country. 
Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Wash- 
ington, William E. Burghardt DuBois, 
and James Weldon Johnson—this seems 
to us to be the historic ranking to date. 
Of Mr. Johnson it is difficult to say in 
which of many fields of high achieve- 
ment and noble service he excelled . . 
To those privileged to know Mr. John- 
son, however, either as friend or asso- 
ciate, the man himself was far more 
notable, and now memorable, than the 
teacher, or poet, or executive. A gentle- 
man of the highest order of character 
and culture, he represented a combina- 
tion of gentleness and power, sweetness 
and strength, inward spiritual grace and 
outward practical action, which was like 
a chord of music, or a perfect poetic 
cadence. As he grew older, he ripened 
in wisdom and insight, but remained still 
youthful in his quick feeling of indigna- 
tion over wrong and instant courage of 
word and deed. Moving easily and 
happily among his white friends, he 
maintained closest touch and sympathy 
with the masses of his black brethren 
struggling painfully but ever happily 
for justice and freedom. James Weldon 
Johnson was a great and a good man. 
Alas, the tragedy that ended so cruélly 
his blessed days on earth! 


JouN Haynes HoLMEs 
Unity 


Vans WELDON JOHNSON, 


As a member or an official of 
the Association for the Advancement of 
the Colored People, he was an indefa- 
tigable worker for the betterment of his 
race. For outstanding public service to 
them he stood far in the van... . He 
was a remarkable man and he had a 
remarkable career. His death is a loss 
to both the white people and the 
Negroes. 

Rome, N. Y., Sentinel 


Few lives are so rich in various 
experience and accomplishment as his, 
so tragically ended . . . His efforts tu 
end lynching—once he came near being 
lynched—and his unflagging zeal as an 
officer of the National Association for 
the Advancement of Colored People are 
enough to maintain his memory. 

But it is as the writer and the educa- 
tor and fosterer of writers that he was 
most noteworthy There’ were 
roots of bitterness in Johnson, but he 
had good reason for gratification and 
pride. Before his eyes and in the 
course of a few years he saw men and 


women of his race distinguish them- 
selves in all the arts. Actors, singers, 
musicians, dancers, painters, sculptors, 
poets, novelists, won their way to fame. 
All the world danced to Negro music. 
Johnson was professor of creative litera- 
ture at Fisk university. He had the 
good fortune to see a far broader crea- 
tive movement. 


New York Times 


For more than 40 years he had 
been one of the foremost leaders of his 
people in this country, and a public 
personage of high rank in the fields of 
music, literature, journalism, education, 
jurisprudence, and public affairs in gen- 
eral, without respect to strictly racial 
issues . 

As the general result of his manifold 
services, the character of the race prob- 
lem in America has been fundamentally, 
and do doubt permanently altered— 
altered, on the whole, to the great advan- 
tage of all who are necessarily con- 
cerned with it. 


Waterbury, Conn., American 


“In the death of Mr. Johnson, the 
world has lost a great mind. I was 
very much shocked at the manner in 
which he met his end. My sympathies 
are extended to his widow.” 


Cot. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JR. 


“The death of Dr. James Weldon 
Johnson is extremely unfortunate at this 
time. His contributions to the culture 
of America were second only to his con- 
tribution to a better understanding be- 
tween all men. Here at New York 
University, where he was visiting pro- 
fessor for four years, he impressed us 
with his kindness, compassion and un- 
ending effort to make this a better 
world, As a public servant, educator 
and author, he has left much that will 
never die.” 

Dean E. GeorGeE PAYNE, 
School of Education, 
New York Umiversity 


“One of the greatest of Americans 
and one of the greatest contributors to 
American life and civilization that has 
ever existed.” 

Gene Buck, President 
American Society of Composers 
Authors and Publishers 


James Weldon Johnson will have an 
enduring place in literature as one of 
America’s best prose writers and truly 
original poets. In history he will be 


remembered as one of the most valu- 
able citizens of his time. As an advo- 
cate of Negro rights, he stiffened the 
backbone of his people and sharpened 
the conscience of the white race . . . 
No American who has searched his 
conscience on the subject can deny Mr. 
Johnson’s conclusion that “In large 
measure the race question involves the 
saving of black America’s body and 
white America’s soul.” 
LESLIE CHRISMER “Books and Authors” 
Chester, Pa., Times 


Negroes should join again 
in a mass demonstration for one of 
their own who could not fight with his 
fists or sprint or leap. But this man did 
more for his race than any athlete, how- 
ever great, could possibly accomplish. 
James Weldon Johnson died on Sunday 
in Maine. He was killed in an auto 
accident. He was slight in stature, but 
— was the greatest fighter of them 
Woe 

When Jim was a Broadway song- 
writer he never let success go to his 
head, and when he crusaded for the na- 
tional association he still kept his feet 
on the ground. Jim was at his 
best in making flank rather than frontal 
attacks on prejudice. He did do both, 
but he was most useful in doing his 
work in his own way. He never sur- 
rendered anything of his high aspira- 
tions and ideals. 

He had charm and humor, and in his 
own personality and life he did a great 
deal to brush aside the words and 
thoughts of those who would minimize 
the achievements and the potentialities 
of the Negro race. . 

Heywoop Broun, “It ‘Seems to Me” 


Scripps-Howard Newspapers 


Mr. Johnson’s name became a 
by-word i in every Negro home when he 
led the first big crusade against the lynch- 
ing evil as executive secretary of the 


N.A.A.C.P. In contradiction to the 
argument of the South that rape was 
justifiable because it was only used in 
cases where white women had been 
raped by Negroes, he unearthed proof 
to show over fifty Negro women and 
many whites had been victims. 


Bluefield, W. Va., The Telegraph 


James Weldon Johnson was one of 
the most notable Negroes in American 
history. Talented and versatile, possess- 
ing creative power as well as the ability 
to work hard and steadily, he was an 
educator and a diplomat as well as an 








296 


author. And he was a distinguished 
success in all three fields as well as one 
of the most understanding interpreters 
of the problems of his race. . 

But the work he did was by no means 
superior to the sort of man he was. A 
credit to his country and a credit to his 
race—James Weldon Johnson. 


Ft. Wayne, Ind., The Gazette 


The Negro in America has had few 
more effective ambassadors to his fellow 
Americans than James Weldon John- 
son. . . . As head of the Association 
for the Advancement of Colored Peo- 
ple, he worked for his race along sensi- 
ble lines, recognizing the limitations, 
insisting upon the possibilities. 

He was, of course, a crusader, but 
he brought to that calling a record of 
achievement. Perhaps more than any 
other modern Negro he is responsible 
for starting the flood of Negro self- 
expression of the last few years. 

But James Weldon Johnson the pas- 
sionate crusader would not have been 
half so effective had not he been pre- 
ceded and accompanied by James Wel- 
don Johnson the song writer, book 
writer and tireless worker in facts and 
statistics. His life, perhaps, is a bench 
mark against which future Negro prog- 
ress and advancement may be measured 
for some time to come. 


Baltimore, Md., The Morning Sun 


Born in Florida, he won a de- 
gree as doctor of literature, practiced 
law in Jacksonville, then shifted to 
education and literature in which he 
made lasting contributions to the cul- 
tural life of the nation . . . His natural 
gifts were devoted, through a long life, 
to advancement of his race, and in this 
endeavor he found true greatness for 
himself. For 14 years, from 1916 to 
1930, he was secretary of the National 
Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People and since 1930 he had 
been professor of creative literature at 
Fisk University. 

To the members of his race, as well 
as to all Americans who start life with 
a handicap, he should serve as an inspi- 
ration. 

Evansville, Ind., The Press 


James Weldon Johnson was one of 
the most brilliant and versatile men ever 
produced by the Negro in America. It 
has been said of him that he brought 
greater honor to his people than any 
other person since the death of Booker 
T. Washington. 

In his devotion to his race, 
labors as author, 


in his 
inspirer of other 


authors and crusader against oppres- 
sion, James Weldon Johnson gave so 
unstintingly of himself that he sacri- 
ficed his health, which he was seeking 


to regain in the quiet of the Maine 
woods. His life has come to an untime- 
ly end, but the fruit of his labor will 
be enjoyed long afterehim by a host of 
lowly folk, many of whom may never 
have heard his name. 


Wilkes Barre, Pa., Evening News 


During the past week America paid 
her last tribute to all that is mortal of 
James Weldon Johnson—a prince 
among Negro authors. With him was 
buried his favorite brain-child—the vol- 
ume of verse, “God’s Trombones.” . . . 
He began life with a full appreciation 
of the value of appearance and style. 
This meant much in later years when 
he was associated with his younger 
brother in the Cole and Johnson team. 
Together they raised Negro entertain- 
ment to a level unknown before 
His art reached its zenith in the song, 
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” common- 
ly regarded as the National Anthem of 
his race. 


Syracuse, N. Y., Post Standard 
Few of the present day white 
authors in this country have been of 
more enduring service to some of the 
nation’s hidden values than Dr. John- 
son, whose professorship of creative 
literature at New York University and 
Fisk University in Nashville has been 
of inestimable use in calling attention to 
the profound wisdom of preserving the 
Negro’s music. 
Anniston, Ala., Star 
America is poorer for the death of 
James Weldon Johnson, Negro poet, 
teacher, editor and composer. .. . 
Sanity, courage and freedom from 
bitterness were marks of his character 
in all his work. Among the many great 
leaders of his race, who have con- 
tributed constructively to the building 
of America, James Weldon Johnson is 
not least. 
St. Louis, Mo., Star-Times 


No Negro since Booker T. Washing- 
ton has more lovingly labored on behalf 
of his people than has James Weldon 
Johnson. Writer, poet, musician, diplo- 
matic official, editor, educator—he seems 
to have himself explored many of those 
avenues of opportunity which he craves 
for his race. His contributions to the 
cultural life of America were varied and 
distinguished. Throughout his long 
term as secretary of the National Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Col- 
ored People, he strove mightily for the 
emancipation, protection, and guidance 

of Negroes. 

Never did Mr. Johnson shirk the 
responsibility which he himself pointed 
out in the task of uplifting the race. 
He led the way. James Weldon John- 
son gazed on vistas which few Negroes 





The Crisis 


had ever seen and, because of him their 
paths have been enriched and simplified. 
Gentleness was perhaps his crowning 
grace, and his whole human experience 
exemplified the triumph of character 
over limitations. 


La Salle, Ill., Post Tribune 


The tragic accident which snatched 
away James Weldon Johnson while his 
usefulness was still at its height de- 
prived the Negro race of one of its out- 
standing representatives and literature 
of an author who made a distinctive 
contribution to it. In his death a 
vital and _ well-respected personality 
passed. 


New York City, Review of Literature 


Less known was the inspiration 
given by him to youth at New York 
University, where he lectured frequent- 
ly, and at Fisk University, where he 
taught creative literature. 

In his devotion to his race, in his 
labors as author, inspirer of other au- 
thors and militant campaigner for the 
political and cultural equality of colored 
people, James Weldon Johnson gave so 
unstintingly of himself that he sacri- 
ficed his health, which he was seeking 
to regain in the quiet of the Maine 
woods. His loss will leave a place not 
soon filled, but the fruit of his labor 
will be enjoyed long after him by a 
host of lowly folk, many of whom may 
never have heard even his name. 


J. M. Potrarp, Sr. 
Niagara Falls, N. Y., Gazette 


. Reading again his poetry con- 
firms one’s opinion that though his an- 
nals may be short he himself is one of 
the immortals. : 

ETHEL M. Womack, “The Book World” 


Murfreesboro, Tenn., Journal 


In the death of James Weldon John- 
son the Negroes of America have lost 
one of their most distinguished leaders. 
Mr. Johnson was concerned deeply with 
questions affecting the social welfare of 
his race. For many years he served as 
secretary of the National Association 
for the Advancement of Colored People. 
But his greatest contribution probably 
lay in the field of the race’s intellectual 
and cultural development. . . . Mr. 
Johnson felt injustices keenly. He 
fought discrimination and _ prejudice. 
But he also saw the needs of his race 
in a larger perspective. 


Kansas City, Mo., Times 


America is poorer for the death of 
James Weldon Johnson, Negro poet, 
teacher, editor and composer. . . . His 
career was extraordinarily varied, but 
perhaps his greatest contribution was 





Septe 


made 
Adve 
his s 
cause 
eleva 
ploit 
man. 
dem« 








September, 1938 


made through the Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People. In 
his service to his people he served the 
cause of the nation at large, for the 
elevation of the depressed and the ex- 
ploited is the greatest contribution any 
man, of whatever race, can make to 
democracy. 


St. Louis, Mo., 


Star 


There will be widespread regret in 
the death of James Weldon Johnson. 
As a man of character and achievement 
in many lines not only the black race to 
which he belonged will lament his pass- 
ing but the white race whose discerning 
members came to respect him will share 
the grief. James W. Johnson served 
both the black and the white here in 
our country. . . 

His dignity and tact coupled with his 
strength and scholarship are probably 
responsible for the fact that he was the 
first colored man ever to lecture in a 
Southern university, and the first of 
his race to hold a professorship in a 
northern college. 


Watertown, N. Y., Times 

The grade crossing accident in Maine 
last Sunday which snuffed out the life 
of James Weldon Johnson wrote finis 

a truly remarkable career. Great in 
many fields of endeavor, he was best 
known to the public, perhaps, as the 
militant and vigorous secretary of the 
National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People. But long 
before he became the talented authorized 
spokesman for the American Negro in 
his search for economic security and 
political justice, James Weldon Johnson 
had achieved distinction in education, 
music, poetry and criticism. 

Roanoke, Va., Times 

The death of James Weldon Johnson 
in a grade-crossing accident removes 
from American Life one of the most 
accomplished writers, scholars, and 
social philosophers produced by the 
American Negro race. 

The versatility of Johnson’s genius 
was remarkable. A poet of rare abili- 
ties, he was also an interesting writer of 
prose. The career of this able 
Negro, brought untimely to a tragic 
close through the continued existence 
of that death trap, the grade crossing, 
testifies to the mental capacities of a race 
just a few decades out of slavery and 
points to the opportunities which lie in 
store for other members of that racial 
group who earnestly apply themselves to 
the task of finding and filling their 
proper place in our social order. 


Winston-Salem, N. C., Sentinel 


‘No Negro since Booker T. Washing- 
‘ton has more lovingly labored on be- 


James Weldon Johnson addressing _ the 
N.A.A.C.P. conference in Detroit, July 1937 


half of his people than has James Wel- 
don Johnson. Writer, poet, musician, 
diplomat, official, editor, educator—he 
seems to have himself explored many of 
those avenues of opportunity which. he 
craved for his race. His contributions 
to the cultural life of America were 
varied and distinguished. ; 

James Weldon Johnson gazed on 
vistas which few Negroes had ever seen 
and, because of him, their paths have 
been enriched and simplified. Gentle- 
ness was perhaps his crowning grace, 
and his whole human experience exem- 
plified the triumph of character over 
limitations. 


Christian Science Monitor 


James Weldon Johnson, who was 
killed in an automobile acciderit this 
week, was perhaps the best - known 
Negro in America. He was a versatile 
man, for he was a success in various 
activities. As a poet, an educator, pub- 
lic servant, writer of popular songs, 
scholar, author and crusader for Negro 


297 


rights, his reputation had gone far be- 
yond the ken of his own race. . He 
was leader of his people. He insisted 
on a cultural equality for them and his 
persistence made an anti-lynching bill a 
national issue. 


What James Weldon Johnson did, 
others feel they can do in some appre- 
ciable degree at least. Indeed, he was 
an exceptional man, without reference 
to his color. 


L. W. “In the Limelight” 
Elkhart, Ind., Truth 


In his death the Negroes of 
America lost one of their most dis- 
tinguished leaders. Mr. Johnson was 
concerned deeply with questions affect- 
ing the social welfare of his race. . . 
But his greatest contribution probably 
lay in the field of the race’s intellectual 
and cultural development. . . . He felt 
injustices keenly. He fought discrimi- 
nation and prejudice. But he also 
saw the needs of his race in a larger per- . 
spective. ‘ 

And always he sought to inculcate the 
Negroes with a pride in the artistic 
heritage of their race and a desire for 
further achievement along these 
lines. 


Meadville, Pa., Tribune-Re publican 


James Weldon Johnson, who just lost 
his life, was a man of many talents. 
But it was in his role as fighter for 
Negro rights that The Nation knew him 
best. From the days of the successful 
struggle to free Haiti and Santo 
Domingo from control by American 
marines and the National City Bank to 
the long and still unfinished fight for a 
federal anti-lynching law, Johnson was 
both a vigorous campaigner and a 
shrewd diplomat. He knew politics and 
the mechanics of economic imperialism 
as well as the needs of the exploited 
people, and he used his knowledge with 
absolute devotion. 


The Nation, July 2, 1938 


Perhaps no one of the so-called intel- 
ligentsia among the Negro group was 
more a friend of the stage and the 
Negro actor than James Weldon John- 
son. He never forgot or lost his 
interest in the stage and its people. 

As a propagandist and writer, he was 
best known, and one of the things he 
never failed to call attention to was the 
fact that art knows no color line. He 
believed, and rightly so, that a great 
artist is not only a citizen of the world, 
but that all doors are opened to him and 
whatver race the artist sprang from 
will gain in the respect of other racial 
groups. He ‘therefore felt that the 
Negro artist had a distinct contribution 








298 


to make toward racial betterment and 
the breaking down of prejudices against 
his people... . 
WitiiaM E. Crark 

The Negro Actor, July, 1938 


. . The outstanding thing about 
the late Dr. Johnson was, he was un- 
spoiled through all of the numerous suc- 
cesses. He remained a Negro, speaking 
for the rights of Negroes and working 
tirelessly toward programs for their 
betterment. 


Moses R. Paaxs, “Let’s Talk It Over” 
The Louisville, Ky., Defender 


. America has produced no man 
with a stronger understanding of hu- 
man nature, for Jim Johnson, as he was 
known to his friends, thoroughly under- 
stood and appreciated all Americans— 
black and white. 


His battleground was the world and 
its problems, he fully disproved the 
racial superiority myth by his sheer 
genius and ability as an American; he 
did as much if not more, to cause the 
Negro to gain respect for himself as a 
man equal to any as any other person; 
he broke down racial barriers which 
will benefit both black and white 
Americans to eternity; he was a great 
American who thoroughly enjoyed a 
most illustrious life. 


New York Amsterdam News 


. . He possessed the graces of an 
age when good manners were as general 
as they are today exceptional. He pos- 
sessed much of the optimism character- 
istic of the colored folk lately released 
from the swamps of slavery and imbued 
with a strong pioneering belief in the 
ability to overcome the insurmount- 
able barriers in their path. 

Immaculate always, with intelligent 
eyes that often twinkled with internal 
laughter; suave and impeccable of 
speech and unfailing of courtesy, James 
Weldon Johnson was a man from whom 
one never expected impulsive action or 
unconsidered world. . . . He was indeed 
a unique personality. He played an 
important part in initiating and foster- 
ing the short-lived Negro Renaissance, 
whose promise exceeded its performance 
but which was nevertheless a buoyant, 
hopeful and significant period in Ameri- 
can Negro history. He “sold’”’ America 
on the artistic contribution of Negroes 
to this civilization, and he stood emi- 
nently as a symbol of the safe, sane, 
cultured Negro; of what people of color 
might accomplish and contribute if 
given half a chance. 


GrEorGE S. SCHUYLER, 
“Views and Reviews” 
The Pittsburgh Courier, 





A truly great man has gone to 
the great beyond. And if the deeds 
done in the body are rewarded in the 
life “over there,” James Weldon John- 
son will receive a tremendous reward. 

America has lost a fine citizen and the 
colored people a great teacher and work- 
er for their full rights as American 
citizens. 


Philadelphia, Pa., Tribune 


Tragedy takes from us James Wel- 
don Johnson, but we cannot grieve. We 
are too proud of him, too grateful for all 
that he has meant to his people to ex- 
press sorrow. Johnson died at the 
zenith of his life. For qualities native 
and acquired, for what he wrote and 
what he taught, for what he knew and 
what he lived he had the highest rank. 
In time the seed he sowed will become 
a goodly harvest and then the full 
measure of his work will be known. . . . 


Kansas City, Mo., The Call 


When death, swift and unexpected, 
swooped down out of a Maine fog Mon- 
day morning and snuffed out the life of 
James Weldon Johnson, we sustained a 
loss far greater than the mere removal 
of another of Life’s children from this 
value of ours. It snuffed out, rather, 
a brilliant career at its zenith. It ended 
a lifetime of immeasurable contribution 
in one crushing catastrophe. . 

Many men may come along and re- 
place the genius of James Weldon 
Johnson at music and poetry; others 
may rival. his wtitings. Still others 
may prove equal to him in diplomatic 
circles, or in journalism, or in education. 
But we fear it will be long, long ages 
before we have another to replace him 
in sO many adequately-filled fields. 

It is with a genuine and sustained 
sigh that we mark the passing of an 
unusually great man. 


Cleveland, O., Eagle 


The tragic death which James Wel- 
don Johnson met this week at a railroad 
crossing in Maine has removed one of 
America’s most outstanding intellectuals 
and an uncompromising champion of 
the rights of mankind. How well do 
we recall his effective pen, his charm- 
ing verses, his enchanting musical hits 
and his untiring fights for the under- 
privileged man. 


The Savanaah, Ga., Tribune 


. Mr. Johnson was poet, author, 
musician, linguist and diplomat, having 
served his country with distinction in 
South and Central America. It is very 
rarely one finds these accomplishments 
in one personality, but he was a rare 
personage with a scintillating brilliancy. 

His poem, “Lift Every Voice 
and Sing,” which has been aptly termed 








the Negro National Anthem, shows a 
deep nature attuned with the spirit of 
his God and an intense love for his 
native land. 


Boston, Mass., Chronicle 

. . . As a man of letters he took first 
rank among living Negro writers . 
James Weldon Johnson was the fore- 
most alumnus of Atlanta University. 
By nature and temperament he was con- 
servative, cautious, and courteous. c 
He was the Negroes’ ambassador of 
letters to the white race, honored and 
admired. 

Dr. KeELtty MILLER 


His contribution to art and 
literature were outstanding, and his 
spirit and activities did much to make 
the United States a better place in which 
to live. . He made a special con- 
tribution toward the advancement of his 
race, and in death, as in life, his work 
continues among men. 


St. Louis, Mo., Argus 


. . . Today we mourn the loss of a 
diplomat, a poet and a philosopher, but 
more than this our group has been be- 
reft of an eminently strong, mature and 
intelligent personality. Indeed, if our 
so-called Afro-American culture can be 
said to produce its flowers, certainly 
James Weldon Johnson was one of the 
most exquisite among them. 

If it is true that great men always 
achieve a philosophy of life which 
shapes their personalities and provides 
them with a source of power, we believe 
that the philosophy which motivated Dr. 
Johnson was founded upon a sustained 
faith in the capacity and the progress 
of the American Negro. 


Detroit, Mich., The Chronicle 


We are grieved at the sudden death 
of James Weldon Johnson. Alas, we 
knew him well. School teacher, lawyer, 
diplomat, editor, poet, translator, organ- 
izer, Campaigner for civil rights, he was 
a man of whom all Americans might be 
justly proud. The fine sensibilities of 
Mr. Johnson were evident in all his 
undertakings. Whether as_ essayist, 
poet, song-writer, diplomat or public 
speaker, he impressed one always as a 
man of sensitive and cultivated endow- 
ments. 

Mr. Johnson was a keen observer of 
American folkways, a diligent, painstak- 
ing student, a witty and charming per- 
son. . . . His autobiography, “Along 
This Way,” tells modestly of a rich and 
distinguished personal history. 

He was amazingly versatile, proving 
himself an able workman in several 
areas. Under the American scheme his 
was a successful life of a high order— 
a life of high moral sensibilities and 


The Crisis 











Sepi 


high 
life 
cum 
a co 


rs «6 


eS SE OO ow 





September, 1938 






high purposes. In the quality of this 
life he passed beyond color and cir- 
cumstance, and should be judged not as 
a colored man, but as a man. 


Tulsa, Okla., The Oklahoma Eagle 


. He was a great man in so many 
ways, in so many fields, in so many 
periods during his lifetime, that the 
country must feel a distinct sense of loss 
at his sudden departure from the scene. 

He was among the half-dozen stal- 
warts of the old regime who carried on 
into the present the work of increasing 
the stature of colored America in poli- 
tics, civil liberties, art and literature. 

His books, his poetry, his music and 
the memory of his engaging personality 
will live on for many years. Indefatig- 
able in emphasizing the contributions 
of his people to American music, litera- 
ture, the theatre, and national history, 
he lived to see the development of a 
growing nation-wide appreciation of 
Negro genius. 

A capable diplomat and a shrewd 
student of national politics, he used his 
many and diverse contacts for the ad- 
vancement of his people, and grew to 
be internationally honored and respected. 

He will long be remembered as 
one of the most unique and outstanding 
sons America has produced. 

Colored America’s loss is greater 
than that of the nation, for with the 
tasks still before us, we have all too few 
of his capacity to carry on, and to in- 
spire the rest of us to do likewise. 


Pittsburgh, Pa., The Courter 


The tragic passing of James Weldon 
Johnson has been publicized more so 
than any other race personage of recent 
years, and justly so. His memory is 
deserving of every good thing that has 
been said. In no locality was he more 
revered than in Savannah. He was 
always a welcome visitor, bringing’ inspi- 
ration and making stronger the ties of 
friendship. . . . “Lift Every Voice 
and Sing,” “God’s Trombones,” and his 
other books will ever be a lasting monu- 
ment to James Weldon Johnson. 


Savannah, Ga., Tribune 


His entire life was devoted to 
the advancement of Negroes. He was 
a big man because he lived for the 
service of others. He was a national 
character because he fought for big 
issues for a big race. His contributions 
to civilization will forever live and the 
Negro race has advanced farther up the 
ladder of progress because of the life 
of James Weldon Johnson... . . 


Kansas City, Kans., Plaindealer 


James Weldon Johnson was a 
doer of deeds, a giant oak standing in 
a forest among many others, but tower- 








299 








ing above the most of them. As time 
moves the present generation away from 
the nearness of his life, the world will 
be able to see how’far above the rest of 
mankind this stalwart of the race 
stood. 


Durham, N. C., Carolina Times 


. . Unlike Dunbar and Phyllis 
Wheatley who were taken in readily as 
novelties of a broken race, Dr. John- 
son came in the latter day—when even 
those who possessed the fire of genius 
and the unique ability to interpret esthet- 
ically what their intellectually curious 
natures inquired about—were tried by 
the sears of hard critics and the white 
flame of prejudice. 

By the push of his sheer genius, his 
technical finish, and his wonderful soul 
of passion, he forged to the front in the 
literary annals of his time. The merit 
of his work, its intense and genuine mel- 
lowness, its tone of flavor, and that 
fervor so peculiar to our race made for 
him an immortal name. . . 

His fight was beautiful and glorified 
with all the valor ascribed to the great 
warriors of the old world and the new. 
In him the colored group can boast of a 
great man—a strong man whose place 
in history will be alongside the great 
founders of this republic. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON FLANAGAN 
Birmingham, Ala., World 


. . James Weldon Johnson under- 
stood clearly that the hope of the 
oppressed of every race was bound up 
with the fate and fortune of labor. . . 
When the free historian of the future 
seeks from among those who once lived 
a personality symbolizing the New 
Negro, he will find James Weldon 
Johnson made to order. We share with 
all, the grief of his untimely death. 


FRANK CrosswalitH, Editor 
Negro Labor News Service 


. In his tireless crusades against 
the national disgrace of lynching, and 
in his ardent and effectual labors for the 
cultural awakening of the Negro, he 
did great service for all Americans. . . . 


Washington, D. C., Post 


. The impress he left on his 
time was by no means only in the better- 
ment of the Negro estate. He was an 
unusually versatile | character—the 
detailing of his activities and achieve- 
ments takes almost a column in the New 
York press—and there were many 
“firsts” in his career. He was variously 
lawyer, poet, musical comedy composer, 
diplomatic official, author, editor and 
educator. 

He did much to raise the political 
status of his people in the United States 
and to rouse them for their own good 





from blind allegiance to a single party. 
His was a busy, useful life touchingmany 
widely separated fields and the influence 
of its contributions.will long remain. 


Dayton, O., News 


. . . He was a figure of distinction, 
a character of well-deserved celebrity, a 
man of authentic genius and of compel- 
ling charm. His natural modesty kept 
him from the flare of the spotlight, yet 
his name and his work were widely 
known and respected. . . 

Mr. Johnson was a reformer, not a 
rebel. He believed in slow attainment 
of humane objectives because he was 
convinced that rapid progress is largely 
wasted. Revolutionary doctrines fright- 
ened him. He was timid about taking 
chances with violence. It was part of 
his faith that his people must earn the 
improvement of their condition which 
he so keenly desired. His verse, in 
common with his sociological essays, was 
rational. If bitterness crept into his 
writings, no one deplored its intrusion 
more than he. His “Autobiography of 
an Ex-Colored Man” is an appealing 
document, perhaps on account of its 
reserve, its reticence. There were many 
things that he disciplined himself not to 
write. 

Naturally enough, a number of doors 
were closed to him the while he lived; 
but now, dead in a highway accident, he 
is free of the handicap of any 
prejudice. . 


Washington, D, C., Star 


James Weldon Johnson con- 
tributed much to the welfare of his race. 
And in the fields of literature and 
music, too, he left a deep imprint upon 
his day and generation. . His tire- 
less efforts, his humane viewpoint, his 
breadth of knowledge and his sympathy 
of spirit may be said to have comprised 
a mighty influence for good within a 
realm of action which historically has 
been fraught with all too much prej- 
udice and intolerance. 


Trenton, N. J., Times 


A grade-crossing accident has ended 
the life of James Weldon Johnson, one 
of the foremost leaders of American 
Negroes. 

Poet and writer, he did not enclose 
himself in literature as many a white 
writer of similar talents has done. As 
an educator, as secretary for the 
National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People and as a political 
figure he devoted himself to the better- 
ment of his people. . . 

He will be missed not only by the 
members of his own race, but by all 
those who have welcomed the emergence 
of the Negro into a place of greater 
(Continued on page 309) 








Editorial of the Month 


Mr. Farley Denies 
Philadelphia, Pa., Tribune 


1M FARLEY, chairman of the National Democratic 

Committee, hastened to deny that he had written a 

Mississippi Democrat urging him to use his influence to 
bring Negroes into the Democratic Party in Mississippi. 

The rumor that Farley had written such a letter set off a 
small revolution in Mississippi. The party chieftains 
wondered if Mr. Farley had gone crazy. 

He was called on the telephone and asked if he had com- 
mitted the unpardonable sin of attempting to put the ballot 
in the hands of Negroes in Mississippi. 

Mr. Farley shouted, “No! I never wrote such a fool 
letter.” 

Why would a letter requesting that the Democratic Party 
or Republican Party for that matter give colored people their 
constitutional right to vote be foolish? Why is it necessary 
for Mr. Farley to be afraid to urge that colored people be 
given the right of franchise in the “Solid South?” Is it a 
crime? Why is it necessary for men who are liberal on 
most things to dodge the grave injustice done colored Ameri- 
cans? Why is it that both Republicans and Democrats permit 
the South to control their thinking on the color question? 

America will never be free until colored Americans are 
permitted to vote. No American, regardless of what he says, 
is a true liberal until he is willing to fight. for the enfran- 
chisement of southern colored citizens. 


. . « We maintain that any State which, through its officers, 
allows a person’s property or life to be taken from him with- 
out due process of law then such officers should be adjudged 
as having denied the victim his rights as a citizen, and conse- 
quently, the Attorney General has a right to act in such 
acase. Therefore, if the office of Mr. Cummings is “power- 
less to act” in the recent lynchings, it is powerless, by its own 
will and supineness, brought about by a spirit of carelessness 
and indifference to the crimes in question. If Attorney 
General Cummings had the will and the conviction to act, he 
is not stopped by the provisions of the Constitution. 

Instead of his office being “powerless to act” in the case 
of the two lynchings in the South, we think that the Attorney 
General should be charged with neglect of duty for his failure 
to perform the obligation as required of him by the Four- 
teenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. 
. . —St. Louis, Mo., Argus. 


Not a day has gone by but what we read in the daily 
newspapers about this or that organization or official sending 
protests to Germany about Hitler’s treatment of persons of 
Jewish blood. The United States Government itself has 
taken cognizance of the appalling atrocities which are head- 
lined in the daily newspapers and has protested time and 
again. 

But, nowhere, except in our Negro weekly newspapers do 
we find any mention of similar barbaric practices which are 
commonplace in these United States against the Negro, espe- 
cially in the South. We confess we're tired of reading our 


From the Press of the Nation 


The Crisis 


favorite dailies and their editorials about Hitler and his 


Nazis. It’s about time that the papers stayed out of the 
internal affairs of other nations and that they help the United 
States first sweep its own doors clean. . . —New York, 
N. Y., Age. 


And this reminds us: that in all things affecting their com- 
mon welfare Negroes in Tulsa are neither Republican nor 
Democratic wardheelers buss-heading and beefing about 
whether Negroes should belong to the Republican or Demo- 
cratic parties. The average wardheeler of either party 
knows just about as much concerning the ideas underlying 
party programs as a gourd-vine on a chicken coop. Nine 
cases out of ten, he is a chiseler and a braggart, bereft of 
ideas as he is of ethics. 

It is no particular honor that a Negro should belong to 
either party. He should organize his vote and place it 
where it promises the greatest good. Any Negro who is 
more a Republican or Democrat than he is a man concerned 
for a “realized citizenship,” is a fool! . . —Tulsa, Oka., 
Eagle. 


. What does it mean that the state department of 
education allocates hundreds of thousands of dollars to be 
used for Negro children, and part of that money is diverted to 
the use of white children? Such is the evidence presented 
by the Louisiana Colored Teachers’ Association, and what 
are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue as a 
group to’sit by, complaining loudly about the injustices and 
inequalities heaped upon us, or are we going to come together 
in an organized effort to gain the influence of a few powerful 
whites interested in the welfare of our group and ask that 
they bring pressure to bear on those responsible for this con- 
tinued neglect? Organization, directed in the proper chan- 
nels, will be productive of good. Will the Negro residents 
of New Orleans organize into one body, that their children 
may have the opportunities the twentieth century offers to a 
civilized world, or will they remain in several small, weak 
and ineffectual groups whose puny strength can be broken 
or pushed aside at will by such as the Orleans Parish School 
Board? . . —New Orleans, La., Weekly. 


The typical reason given for disfranchising Negroes was 
the need for superior intelligence at the helm. The time 
when a southern legislature, composed of Negroes and their 
carpet bag allies, adjourned to see the circus was related again 
and again with telling effect. Even the North had not the 
heart to talk about the Constitution and the rights of citizen- 
ship in the face of that. 

The scene changes, another generation is the electorate. 
Out in the state of Washington, the metropolis elected a 
mayor whose one bid for office was his music and entertain- 
ment. Down in Texas, the old style of politician is knocked 
clear out of the ring by a flour salesman who answered ques- 
tions about state policy, by saying “Sing another song, boys.” 

The Negro legislators went to the circus on circus day. 
The modern politician is making politics a sideshow every 
day, and the people applaud his work by electing the enter- 
tainer to office. Who dares to throw the first stone at the 
blacks now? “We want Cantor” for president has become 


more than a catch phrase in a radio hour. . . —The Call, 
Kansas City, Mo. 


Sept 


rr ir 32 


September, 1938 


Editorials 


OTHING ought to be 
done to impede the 
necessary and humane ef- 
forts being made by our government and by organizations 
and individuals to rescue the victims of Nazi terror and pro- 
vide a place for them in our great country. But while THE 
Crisis would not suggest a cessation of this work, we reiter- 
ate the sentiments expressed here some months ago: that there 
are millions of Negro American citizens—not under Hitler’s 
heel—who need and are entitled to amelioration of the preju- 
dices against them, and to opportunity to achieve indepen- 
dence and happiness in their own nation. 

Negroes are persecuted here in much the same manner that 
“non-Aryans” are persecuted in Central Europe. They are 
restricted in work opportunities, proscribed in professional 
training and activity, segregated, humiliated, and terrorized. 
Like the “non-Aryans” they are the victims of vicious propa- 
ganda designed to keep them forever in a certain status. 

Let those whose hearts bleed so for the men and women 
across the sea turn their glances within our own borders. 
They will see Hitlerism on every side, directed against citi- 
zens who happen not to be white. A Senate quibbles for six 
weeks over the technicalities of a government doing some- 
thing to stop the hideous crime of lynchine; a section of the 
same Senate fights a wages and hours bill because it might 
pay Negroes a subsistence wage; a federal bill to aid the 
states in education is snarled because Negro children might 
receive their proportionate share of the government funds; 
to keep midsummer normal, Mississippi, Georgia and 
Florida stage lynchings of colored men; the bloody shirt 
of race hatred is waved in political campaigns. 

We might try removing at least a part of the beam in our 
own eye before going after the mote in the eye of Central 
Europe. We might save ourselves from being charged 
with— 


Refugees and Citizens 


UICK to spout forth 

our righteous indigna- 
tion over the wrongs visited 
by others upon helpless minorities, we scoffed at and scolded 
Italy for adopting Hitler’s racial theories, and for issuing 
the ridiculous manifestoes on racial purity. 

Even quicker than our outburst came the reply from 
Virginio Gayda, Mussolini’s official editorial writer: “clean 
up your own back yard (or words to that effect); you 
exclude Japanese, you lynch Negroes. You believe in racial 
purity, but you are too hypocritical to say so.” 

To this logical impudence there is no reply; only sput- 
tering. Maybe some day we will see that until a Negro can 
freely study medicine at, say, the University of Michigan, 
we cannot make a convincing argument as to why Jews 
should be permitted to study at Heidelberg; or that until we 
stamp out the rope and the faggot as amusements for sections 
of our population, we cannot make a good case against the 
cruelties of Storm Troopers. 


Hypocrisy 


N response to inquiries, 

Attorney-General Homer 
S. Cummings has written to 
Senator Robert F. Wagner, of New York, and Congress- 
man Louis Ludlow, of Indiana, that the Department of 
Justice is “powerless to act” against lynching. 

Mr. Cummings said he viewed lyfiching “with loathing,” 
but in the absence of a specific law passed by Congress, 
could do nothing. He told Mr. Ludlow his department 


**Powerless to Act”’ 


could not draft a bill suggesting the lines along which such 
legislation should go, venturing the opinion that Congress had 
discussed such legislation so thoroughly that it ought to 
know the kind of a bill to draw. 


THE Crisis accepts the attorney-general’s statements with 
more than a grain of salt. We remember that Mr. Cum- 
mings refused to place lynching on the agenda for dis- 
cussion at the first national crime conference in Washington 
in December, 1934. He cannot draft an anti-lynching bill, 
but in February, 1934, his department drafted nearly a 
score of bills designed to extend the power of the federal 
police. Among these was the revision of the famed Lind- 
bergh kidnaping law. The two words, “or otherwise” were 
added to the Lindbergh act, making it to read “for ransom 
or reward, or otherwise.” Yet, even with the addition of 
these two words obviously designed to cover cases in which 
no ransom or reward was demanded, Mr. Cummings split 
the finest of legal hairs in deciding that the act did not apply 
to the cases of Claude Neal and Ab Young, both colored, 
who were kidnaped, taken across state lines, and lynched. 

But Mr. Cummings at least has marked the way for 
those who want to stamp out lynching. He has said that a 
law is needed if the federal government is to act. Long 
ago it has been shown that the states will not act—they 
have not done a thing on the lynchings which occurred in 
July. So, therefore, if lynching is to be stopped, the federal 
government must do it through a federal anti-lynching law. 


E have had no oppor- 

tunity, as this is writ- 
ten, to study the National 
Emergency Council’s re- 
port on the South, but we do have before us newspaper 
stories and editorials on the primary election contests in 
Georgia and South Carolina where President Roosevelt has 
turned thumbs down on Senators Walter F. George and 
“Cotton Ed” Smith respectively. 

Both these gentlemen have forsaken what little statesman- 
ship they might have possessed and taken to waving the 
bloody shirt of race hatred. Without having read the 
Report on the South, we venture to wager that it says little 
about the bloody shirt and much about economics; and that 
is where it doubtless has made an error. 

With their people hungry, exploited, ignorant and drift- 
ing helplessly in the perilous national and international 
currents of life, Senators George and Smith are using Walter 
White, the N.A.A.C.P., and White Supremacy as straw men 
in their miserable scramble to hang on to their own jobs 
and patronage for the next six years. 

The plight in which the South finds itself has been con- 
tributed to by ignorance and fear. Deep beneath the many 
factors which influence the development of a region will be 
found these two. The South cannot go about its business 
without first looking into the race angle. It is so busy 
keeping the Negro down that it has let everything else go to 
wrack and ruin, asking only that the Negro be kept under 
the ruin. In its dealing with other sections of the country, 
the black bogey man has shaped all its reasoning, has formu- 
lated its quaint conventions, and stimulated its childish 
reactions. All this is the South’s loss, primarily, but in a 
sense it is the nation’s loss, also. Other sections of the 
country must pause to aid and humor the backward one, and 
must suffer their forward progress to be hampered by the 
myoptic vision of those who represent Dixie in the nation’s 
capital. 


The Problem of 
the South 








+ 302 


The Crisis 


Along the N.A.A.C.P. Battlefront 





Revive Demand for 


Federal Anti-Lynch Bill 


Two lynchings during the first nine 
days of July (one in Mississippi and 
one in Georgia) spurred talk of reviv- 
ing the fight for the federal anti-lynch- 
ing bill in the new Congress which con- 
venes next January. 

During July, Senator Robert F. Wag- 
ner of New York, co-sponsor of the 
anti-lynching bill which was filibustered 
to death in the Senate last January, and 
Representative Louis Ludlow, of In- 
diana, wrote Attorney General Homer 


S. Cummings urging federal action 
against lynchers. Senator Wagner 


urged that the federal bureau of investi- 
gation (G-men) be used to investigate 
lynchings; and Representative Ludlow 
urged the attorney general to draft a 
bill which could be introduced in the 
next Congress. 

Mr. Cummings replied to Senator 
Wagner that he was powerless to have 
the G-men act or to have the federal 
bureau of investigation go into lynching 
in any manner “in the absence of any 


federal statute empowering such ac- 
tion.” The attorney general declared 
that he viewed lynching with “loathing” 
but could do nothing about it without a 
specific law passed by Congress. 

To Representative Ludlow, Mr. Cum- 
mings replied in substantially the same 
vein, except that he offered the opinion 
that lynching was simply “local mur- 
der.” Congressman Ludlow disagreed 
vigorously with this view and again 
urged the attorney general’s office to 
draft a bill for the consideration of the 
next Congress, pointing out that ample 
precedent for such action has been set 
up since President Roosevelt’s admin- 
istration has been in power. He re- 
ferred to the bills which have been 
drafted by the executive department of 
the government and sent to Congress 
for action. 

Since the two lynchings early in July 
(July 6 at Rolling Fork, Miss.; and 
July 9 at Arabi, Ga.) still another ap- 
parent lynching was reported from Can- 
ton, Mississippi, where a colored man 
was surrounded in his car and terrorized 
by a mob which was searching for 


another Negro wanted for a crime. The 
colored man in the automobile, know- 
ing nothing of the crime or why his car 
was being surrounded, became fright- 
ened and jumped from the car and was 
shot down in cold blood by the alleged 
posse. 

It has been reported to the national 
office of the N.A.A.C.P. that one Otis 
Price, colored, was lynched in Perry, 
Florida, early in August, but no men- 
tion of the killing of Price has appeared 
in any newspaper. The story is that 
Price was on his way to a well which 
was used by a number of white and 
colored families and that when he 
passed the cabin of a white farmer, the 
wife of the farmer was taking a bath 
in the open doorway. She saw Price 
and screamed rape. Price was arrested, 
but was taken from the sheriff and his 
body riddled with bullets by a mob of 
unnamed size. 

A second lynching is said to have 
occurred in Perry late in July or early 
in August, but no facts have been 
brought to light. 





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Delegates to the 29th annual conference of the N.A.A.C.P. 








September, 1938 


Senator George Uses 
Race-Hatred Argument 


Desperate after President Roosevelt 
had made a speech in Bainbridge, 
Georgia, calling for his defeat, Senator 
Walter George, who is seeking reelec- 
tion, opened his campaign at Waycross, 
Georgia, with a speech in which he used 
all the old arguments of southern poli- 
ticlans, particularly race-hatred talk. 

The name of Walter White, secretary 
of the National Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Colored People, was men- 
tioned by Senator George, who went 
into great detail to explain why he op- 
posed a federal anti-lynching law. Sen- 
ator George said Walter White sat in 
the gallery of the Senate and directed 
the political fight for the passage of the 
bill and that he (George) refused to 
follow the directions of Secretary White. 

Mr. White’s name and that of the 
N.A.A.C.P. were dragged, also, into 
the South Carolina primary where Sen- 
ator “Cotton Ed” Smith is seeking re- 
election. The Charleston News and 
Courier has carried several editorials 
declaring that the issue is between South 
Carolina white citizens and Walter 
White. 


Rank Jim-Crow In 
T.V.A., Committee Told 


The joint congressional committee in- 
vestigating the Tennessee Valley Au- 


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Fa ed 


in Columbus, O., June 28-July 2, 1938 


thority heard testimony from Charles H. 
Houston, special counsel of the 
N.A.A.C.P., on August 17 and 18 which 
charged the T.V.A. with rank discrim- 


ination against Negro workers and 
against Negro citizens in the area. 
Data presented by Mr. Houston 


showed that many skilled Negro work- 
ers were classified as laborers but were 
doing the same work as white skilled 
workers although drawing about half 
the pay. An example of this was found 
in cement work where Negroes were 
getting 624¢ an hour and the whites 
$1.25. 

Mr. Houston charged, also, that 
Negroes were being intimidated and 
terrorized to prevent them joining 
unions. 

The material presented by Mr. Hous- 
ton was secured by him and Thurgood 
Marshall of the N.A.A.C.P. legal staff 
in the form of affidavits from workers 
on the project. 

The material showed that Negroes 
are still being barred from the govern- 
ment-built town of Norris, Tenn., at 
the Norris dam; that Negroes are al- 
most uniformly barred from skilled 
jobs; that Negroes are not permitted 
to share in the whole apprenticeship pro- 
gram; that Negroes are not allowed to 
participate in the rehabilitation program 
of the area so as to enjoy the benefits 
of the T.V.A. power program; and 


303 


that TVA has increased the amount of 
segregation in the area instead of de- 
creasing it. 


New Subway Employes 


As a result of months of negotiation 
between the Interborough Rapid Tran- 
sit Company, New York city, and the 
N.A.A.C.P., six colored porters were 
recently advanced to the position of 
platform men. The I.R.T. announced 
that these promotions were “experi- 
mental.” Heretofore, the I.R.T. has re- 
stricted Negroes rigidly to employment 
as porters or elevator operators. When 
the municipally-owned Eighth Avenue 
subway system began operation in Sep- 
tember, 1932, it employed Negroes as 
station agents in the booths to make 
change for the public and in some few 
other departments but not on the trains 
themselves. After several years of agi- 
tation, colored men were allowed to take 
the civil service examinations for con- 
ductors and platform men and motor 
men, and at the present time, the 
city-owned subway has numerous Negro 
employees as porters, elevator operators, 
platform men, station agents, electri- 
cians, mechanical helpers, track men, 
conductors and motor men. 

With this experience of Negroes in 
the city-owned subway, the N.A.A.C.P. 
joined with the Transport Workers 
union in trying to get the I.R.T. (pri- 











304 


vately-owned subway) to open up better 
jobs to Negroes. The six new jobs are 
regarded by the N.A.A.C.P. as but a 
beginning. There is still another large, 
privately-owned subway system in New 
York city (the B.M.T.) which also has 
been petitioned to open up opportunities 
to colored workers. 


Staff Changes 


Effective July 15, Charles H. Hous- 
ton resigned active legal work with the 
national office to return to private law 
practice with the firm of Houston and 
Houston in Washington, D. C. Mr. 
Houston will retain the title of special 
counsel and will continue to advise the 
association on legal matters and assist 
with work in the area surrounding 
Washington. 

Miss Juanita E. Jackson resigned as 
of August 31 to become the bride of 
Clarence M. Mitchell, Urban League 
secretary at St. Paul, Minn. Miss 


Jackson, whose title has been special as-- 


sistant to the secretary, in reality has 
directed the building of youth councils 
and college chapters for the N.A.A.C.P. 
and has assisted, also, in membership 
campaigns in a number of large cities. 
She is being married September 7 in 
Baltimore, Maryland. 

George B. Murphy, Jr., formerly edi- 
tor in charge of the Afro-American 
offices in Washington, D. C., and New 
York, joined the N.A.A.C.P. staff July 


1 as publicity assistant. 


Branch News 


Mrs. Vivian Os»orne-Marsh, national 
president of the Delta Sigma Theta so- 
rority, was the principal speaker at the 
regular monthly meeting of the Oakland, 
Calif., branch held in the auditorium at the 
Longfellow school on May 9. 


The third annual style show and dance 
sponsored by the Licking County, Newark, 
O., branch was held in Brennan Hall, 
Thursday, May 12. 


The Weirton, W. Va., branch held its 
regular monthly meeting in the auditorium 
of the Dunbar high school May 16. Dr. 
E. C. Poindexter of Steubenville, president 
of the Cooperatve Union in Steubenville, 
was the principal speaker. An open forum 
discussion was held following the address. 


The Hartford, Conn., branch presented 
Roy Wilkins, editor of THe Crisis, at a 
meeting in the A.M.E. Zion church Sun- 
day evening, May 16. 


Grand Rapids, Mich., branch opened its 
membership drive at a meeting at the 
A.M.E. Community church Sunday, May 
15. Floyd H. Skinner, attorney, was the 
principal speaker. 


At a meeting on May 15, the Balti- 
more, Md., branch endorsed the action of 
Gov. Nice in requesting the resignation of 
the board of Cheltenham School for Boys. 





festival 


A musical 
forum committee of the Akron, O., branch 
was held at Wesley Temple church May 
22. Five soloists from the Oberlin Con- 


sponsored by the 


servatory of Music were featured. The 
branch also held a benefit bridge party pre- 
liminary to launching a membership cam- 
paign on May 18. The party was held at 
the American Legion hall on South 
Howard street. 


The Springfield, Ill., branch opened its 
1938 membership campaign with a mass 
meeting at the Pleasant Grove Baptist 
church on May 10. E. Frederic Morrow, 
co-ordinator of branches from the national 
office, was the principal speaker. Simeon B. 
Osby, Jr., is president of the branch, and 
Robert P. Taylor is chairman of the 
campaign. 


A county-wide mass meeting under the 
auspices of the Logan County, W. Va., 
branch was held Sunday afternoon, May 
22, at the St. Paul Baptist church in Coal 
Branch. The branch has launched a 90- 
day drive for new members. A literary 
and musical program was rendered under 
the direction of Miss Bertha Ruf of Logan. 


Four hundred new members is the goal 
of the Tucson, Ariz., branch which 
launched its membership campaign May 
15. Plans were formulated to contact 
every person in Tucson. National Negro 
Music Week was observed Sunday, May 15 
in Mt. Calvary Baptist church with the 
Women’s Civic and Progressive club co- 
operating with the branch. 


S. E. Cary, Denver attorney, was the 
principal speaker at the regular meeting 
of the Colorado Springs, Colo., branch on 
May 15. 


The Women’s Auxiliary of the Orange, 
N. J., branch held its annual tea at the 
Oakwood branch of the Orange Y.W.C.A., 
Sunday, May 29. The principal speakers 
were Walter White and the Rev. J. Vance 
McIver, pastor of the Union Baptist 
church of Orange. Dr. Walter G. Alex- 
ander of Orange was master of ceremonies. 
Mrs. Cora Johnson of Orange is auxiliary 
president. 


The monthly public forum of the Hous- 
ton, Tex., branch was held on Sunday, 
May 22, in the auditorium of the Antioch 
Baptist church. The principal speaker was 
W. Jay Johnson. Music was furnished by 
the senior choir of the church. 


The following were elected officers of 
the women’s auxiliary of the Charleston, 
W. Va., branch for the coming year, Mrs. 
J. Sybol Baylor was reelected president. 
Mrs. Inez Hall, vice-president; and Mrs. 
T. H. Jones, treasurer, were also reelected. 
Mrs. Cornelia Wright was elected record- 
ing secretary; and Mrs. Carolyn Franklin, 
corresponding secretary. 


The Atlantic City Civil Rights Enforce- 
ment League presented Walter White, to 
an audience June 7 at the Union Baptist 
Temple. Dr. Albert E. Forsythe was 
chairman of the committee of arrange- 
ments. 


The Bridgeport, Conn., branch held its 
regular monthly meeting at the Phyllis 
Wheatley Y.W.C.A. May 31. John Lan- 
cester, Jr., is president. 


William T. McKnight, president of the 
Ohio State Conference of Branches, has 
been named as an assistant attorney gen- 
eral of Ohio by Herbert S. Duffy, attorney 
general. 








The Crisis 






Simeon S. Booker represented the 
Youngstown, Ohio, branch as delegate 
to the Twenty-ninth Annual Conference of 
the N.A.A.C.P. at Columbus, June 28 to 
July 2. 


The Milwaukee, Wis., branch of the 
N.A.A.C.P. requested the school board to 
install floodlights at the Lapham Park 
social center. A committee of ten was 
selected to appear June 27 before the coun- 
cil buildings and grounds committee, which 
will consider a resolution to install flood- 
lights. The branch believes that most of 
the juvenile delinquency in the sixth ward 
can be attributed to the fact that the 
children have no lighted playground for 
night play. 


The Houston, Tex., branch and the 
youth council jointly sponsored a program 
honoring all local Negro graduates in the 
auditorium of Good Hope Baptist church 
June 12. The guest speaker was R. O. 
Lanier, dean of Houston college. 


The White Plains, N. Y., branch brought 
charges of brutal assault against the prin- 
cipal of the Greenburgh high school for 
striking a colored pupil, James Keyes, son 
of a local minister. A special meeting of 
the Greenburgh Board of Education has 
been called to investigate the charges. 


Rabbi Henry J. Berkowitz of Temple 
Beth Israel was guest speaker for the 
Portland, Ore., branch on Sunday, June 19. 
His subject was “The Importance of Unity 
of Minority Groups.” 


The Ypsilanti, Mich., branch held a mass 
meeting and rally in the auditorium of the 
Harriet Elementary school Friday night, 
June 24. Dr. J. J. McClendon, president of 
the Detroit, Mich., branch, was the prin- 
cipal speaker. The Ypsilanti branch, al- 
though organized less than a year ago, has 
already made remarkable strides in the 
community. 


T. M. Fletcher and Hosea Lindsey were 
named delegates to the national convention 
of the association at Columbus, Ohio, June 
28 to July 2, by the Akron, Ohio, branch. 
The N.A.A.C.P. honor award for scholastic 
excellence was given to William Decater, 
graduate of the Central high school. At 
the same time, Robert Nash, West high 
graduate, was awarded the athletic trophy. 


Lloyd C. Griffith, president of the Los 
Angeles, Calif., branch, spoke on “The Sig- 
nificance of the Anti-lynch Fight and the 
Lesson It Teaches” at a vesper service of 
the Pasadena Sing Association in the First 
Baptist church, June 5. 


Clarence G. Smith, president of the 
Toledo, O., branch, and Mrs. Joseph V. 
Duffey, board member, were delegates from 
Toledo to the Twenty-ninth Annual Con- 
ference of the association in Columbus, 
June 28 to July 2. Mr. and Mrs. W. T. 
McKnight, Mrs. Sue D. Snow, and Mrs. 
Jesse S. Heslip also attended. 


Mrs. Robert Stoutenburgh entertained 
the auxiliary of the Morristown, N. J., 
branch, of which she is president, at her 
home on June 22. 


Bernard F. Robinson, senior student of 
sociology at Morehouse college, was guest 
speaker at the June meeting of the Rock- 
ford, Ill., branch on June 19. 


The Dallas, Tex., branch held memorial 
services Sunday afternoon, July 3, at the 
Moorland Branch Y.M.C.A. honoring 
Attorney R. D. Evans, of Waco, state 
president of the N.A.A.C.P., who was 


killed in an automobile and train accident 






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in Waco, June 26, and Hon. James Weldon 
Johnson, of New York, foremost American 
citizen and scholar, former secretary and 
late director of the N.A.A.C.P., who was 
killed in an automobile and train accident 
June 27. The program rendered featured 
Dr. Johnson’s music and poetry. 


R. J. Simmons, president of the Duluth, 
Minn., branch, was the official delegate to 
the annual conference of the association on 
June 28 in Columbus, Ohio. 


The Fresno, Calif., branch held its reg- 
ular monthly meeting June 26 at the Second 
Baptist church. High school graduates 
were honored during the meeting. Mrs. 
Ethel Garner was program chairman. The 
Rev. C. H. Byrd president. 


Clifford-I. Moat, secretary of the Media, 
Pa., branch, attended the twenty-ninth 
annual conference of the association in 
Columbus, O. 


The Omaha, Nebr., branch presented its 
annual benefit minstrel show Thursday, 
June 30, in the Urban League hall. 


Mrs. Johanna Carter, chairman of the 
New Crusade button campaign, sold $50 
worth of buttons in two weeks time. Last 
year Mrs. Carter also sold $10 worth of 
Christmas seals. She is one of the most 
energetic and loyal workers of the Baton 
Rouge, La., branch. 


CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS 
Adopted at Columbus, O., July 2, 1938 
PREAMBLE 


Inasmuch as the N.A.A.C.P. and its lead- 
ership for more than 25 years, have very 
successfully evolved a philosophy that has pro- 
gressively militated toward the wholesome 
inclusion of the Negro in the general citizen- 
ship privileges of America; and whereas this 
philosophy has emanated from the cooperative 
working and planning of both white and col- 
ored members and not from any isolated or 
biased factor, be it resolved that this conven- 
tion re-affirm faith in the continuance of this 
policy of evolving its own philosophy as cir- 
cumstances and conditions may warrant. 


I. ECONOMIC RIGHTS 
Low Cost Housing 


We protest any racial discrimination in the 
selection of tenants, and appointment of ad- 
ministrative officers of any low cost housing 
projects, fostered or financed by or with the 
funds of the federal government for this pur- 
pose. We urge that this program be ex- 
panded on the basis of actual need. 


Discrimination in Employment of 
Federal Projects 


We urge that the federal government take 
steps to see to it that the regulation be en- 
forced which provides that in all contracts 
for work paid for in whole or in part by 
the federal government, there shall be no 
discrimination in employment under such con- 
tracts on account of race, creed or color, or 
political affiliation. 


Reduction in Relief 


The American Negroes ask no §&pecial 
favors, but do recognize the fact that Ne- 
groes are not rehired as fast as whites. There- 
fore, we urge that this fact be taken into 
consideration in the reduction of rolls in 
W.P.A., N.Y.A. and other relief agencies. 


Discrimination in Public Projects 


We have evidence that there has been failure 
in the enforcement of rules and regulations by 
state administrators ‘in so far as allowing 
racial discrimination in the W.P.A. We most 
earnestly petition the federal administrators 
of the W.P.A. to take immediate steps in 
having the orders against discrimination en- 
forced to the letter. 


Creation of Job Opportunities 


We recommend that the campaign for the 
creation of job opportunities for Negroes in 
all public and private enterprises be extended. 


Sharecroppers 


Again we pledge our unremitting support 
of all sincere and intelligent efforts of share- 
croppers to achieve economic independence. 
We urge upon the Congress passage of ade- 
quate legislation which will directly benefit 
sharecroppers, and guard against legislation 
which may be misused for the benefit of those 
who now exploit sharecroppers. 


Labor Unions 


We urge Congress and every state legisla- 
ture to pass appropriate legislation which shall 
prevent any unit organization or association 
from being the employee representative of the 
workers in any shop or office in industrial, 
business or agricultural enterprises, which dis- 
criminates against or excludes any worker 
because of race, creed, color, or political 
affiliation. 

We urge Negroes to study and follow 
closely the activities of the various labor 
organizations. 

The N.A.A.C.P. condemns the discrimina- 
tory practices of any labor organization be- 
cause of race, creed or color. 

We urge Negro workers not to enter labor 
organizations blindly but instead appraise 
critically the motive and practices of all labor 
unions, and that they bear their full share of 
activity and responsibility in the building of a 
more just and intelligent labor movement. 


Social Security 


We recommend that the Congress of the 
United States and the legislatures of the sev- 
eral states enact such legislation as may be 
necessary to include all agricultural workers 
and domestic employees, and all others in the 
lower income brackets, inasmuch as the great 
majority of Negro employables fall within 
these classes, and at present are excluded 
f-om the benefits to be derived from such 
legislation. 


Business 


Owing to the seriousness of the unemploy- 
ment problem affecting the Negro throughout 
the nation, and believing that increased em- 
ployment within the group may help all exist- 
ing conditions, we urge the further develop- 
ment and support of Negro business, consistent 
with ethical practices essential to the opera- 
tion of successful enterprises. 

We also urge support of businesses operated 
by others affording Negroes an appreciable 
and just representation of emplovment, and 
request that careful consideration be given by 
colored people everywhere to this important 
question. 


1l. POLITICAL RIGHTS 
Negro Vote and Political Action 


Recent political and legislative developments 
place upon the N.A.A.C.P. a greater responsi- 
bility to maintain a non-partisan position in all 
local, state and national campaigns. 

We pledge ourselves to continue critical 
examination of issues and candidates and to 


305 


urge Negroes to qualify and register as voters. 

It shall be the policy of the Association that 
neither the Association nor any of its branches 
as branches, or organizations shall engage or 
participate in partisanpolitics, but this does 
not restrict the freedom of all members as 
individuals. 


Disfranchisement 


We pledge ouselves to combat disfranchise- 
ment of American citizens in all the southern 
states and the District of Columbia, with all 
the weapons at our command. 

We recommend that the Congress of the 
United States, and the fegislatures of the sev- 
eral states shall enact laws under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, to enforce the right 
of citizens to vote in all elections, unhandi- 
capped by barriers of race, creed, and, in ac- 
cordance with the spirit of the 15th amendment. 


Discrimination in Army and Navy 


We vigorously condemn the continued dis- 
crimination against Negroes in the federal 
government’s department of the army and 
navy. 

We urge the President to use his broad 
powers by issuing an executive order to stop 
such a grossly unfair policy toward American 
citizens merely on account of race or color, 
and ask the same privileges of employment, 
promotion and recognition for Negroes as are 
accorded other citizens. 

We condemn any proposed legislation which 
asks for the creation of separate Negro units 
in the army and navy, and urge Negro voters 
to support candidates for Congress who will 
pledge themselves to appoint Negro youth to 
Annapolis and West Point. 


Federal Appointments 


We urge upon the President of the United 
States, the members of his Cabinet, and the 
heads of departments the greater integration 
of qualified Negroes into the personnel of the 
various governmental agencies. Particularly 
do we urge upon the President of the United 
States the recognition of the unselfish and bril- 
liant work of the Negro American to one of 
the twenty-two federal judgeships recently cre- 
ated by Act of the Congress. 

We urge upon the President of the United 
States the appointment of at least une qualified 
Negro to the recently created Council of Per- 
sonnel Administration. 


Ill. CIVIL RIGHTS 
Filibustering and Lynching 


The successful filibuster against the Wag- 
ner-Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill, lasting 
nearly seven weeks and costing the American 
tax-payer $460,000, should be a solemn warn- 
ing and danger signal to those who love 
democracy. If illiberal blocs in the United 
States Senate can kill an anti-lynching bill by 
denying the fundamental democratic right to 
a vote on any measure introduced in the Con- 
gress, so can illiberal blocs in that body kill 
any other kind of legislation. The spineless- 
ness of some of the Senators, Democratic and 
Republican, in the face of the filibuster led by 
Senators from states with the worst lynching 
records, makes them equally culpable with 
those who openly fought to prevent a vote 
upon the bill. 

We urge upon all Americans of all races 
and in all sections of the country who oppose 
lynching and who favor the anti-lynching bill 
to withhold their support from any of those 
Senators who failed in this crisis. We pledge 
ourselves to renew the fight for this legislation 
with increased vigor and determination to the 
end that the horrible curse of lynching may 
be wiped out of American life. 


(Continued on next page) 





306 


Civil Service 


The Association endorses the principle of 
civil service, but condemns unreservedly the 
manner in which it is administered in the sev- 
eral departments in the federal government as 
well as in a number of the states. The vicious 
system requiring photographs to be submitted 
should be discontinued, and all applicants 
should be selected according to their numer- 
ical standing on civil service rolls instead of 
as now provided by Civil Service Rule VII, 
and the President requested to use his execu- 
tive power to carry out the purposes of this 
resolution. We urge fore Negro Americans 
to take competitive examinations for posts for 
which they are trained so as to increase 
the number of qualified persons for such 
appointments. 


Education 


The Association goes on record as favor- 
ing constant, incessant and persistent activities 
in behalf of universal education to which 
every American child will have an equal 
opportunity. The Association will continue its 
fight for equal school terms, equal teachers’ 
salaries, equal distribution of school funds, 
equal standards for all schools and the aboli- 
tion of all discrimination in every phase of 
school life. 

Since the N.A.A.C.P. is largely dependent 
on a democratic educational system and as 
the present textbooks used in schools dis- 
criminate against the Negro, and serve as bar- 
riers against complete integration of the Negro, 
in economic life, we advocate that local com- 
mittees be set up to survey textbooks to point 
out historical inaccuracies; that said com- 
mittees, with aid from the National Education 
Committee, protest to publishers to remove said 
historical inaccuracies, and also present to pur- 
chasing committees of boards of education an 
approved list of textbooks to be used. 

We endorse the principle of permanent 
tenure of teachers as a basic condition of 
academic ireedom, and pledge ourselves to 
work for permanent teacher tenure, following 
a reasonable probationary period in all public 
school systems. 


Civil Rights 


We pledge ourselves to continue to fight 
against every form of discrimination in the use 
of places of public accommodation and against 
segregation in the use of parks, swimming 
pools, educational centers and nursery 
schools maintained in whole or in part by 
public funds; and to take necessary steps to 
end the very apparent collusion between police 
and courts whose overt actions obstruct and 
hinder the fullest prosecution of civil rights 
cases. 

Flagrant abuse of the most elementary 
constitutional rights of colored citizens by 
police of the Nation’s capital, which has 
caused the death of some sixty persons at 
the hands of law enforcement officials in 
Washington, D. C., during the past ten years 
is an outrageous scandal which can no longer 
be denied to the rest of the country. 

We urge a congressional investigation of 
police brutality and indiscrimnate use of fire- 
arms which are a constant menace to Wash- 
ington’s citizens and to visitors in the Capital. 

We urge enactment of legislation designed 
to protect the civil rights of Americans in 
Washington and to abolish the segregation and 
discrimination in public places which now 
exists. 

The disfranchisement of the citizens of the 
District of Columbia makes it necessary for 
us to appeal to congressmen and senators for 
these reforms and we urge our branches to 
communicate with their respective congres- 
sional representatives to support remedial 


legislation in the next session. 








Restrictive Covenants 


The Association views with alarm the deci- 
sions of the highest courts of Michigan, Mis- 
souri, Maryland and New York upholding re- 
strictive covenants in deeds and contracts 
entered into by private owners of property, 
prohibiting the conveying, demissing, devising, 
leasing or renting of property to any person 
of African descent or to members of the 
Negro race. Such agreements are most re- 
prehensible and are in violation of the funda- 
mental rights of property and of the law of 
the land. 

The Association commends to the citizens 
of the country and especially to the local 
branches the splendid victory of the Charleston 
and Huntington Branches of West Virginia in 
the case of White v. White, 108 West Virginia, 
page 128, wherein the Supreme Court of West 
Virginia held: 

“A restriction in a deed conveying a fee 
simple estate providing that the property 
embraced ‘shall not be conveyed, demised, 
devised, leased or rented to any person of 
Ethiopian race or descent for a period of 
fifty years’ is void as incompatible with the 
estate granted.” 


Scottsboro 


Since last we met four of the nine Scotts- 
boro defendants have been freed. But five of 
them yet remain in prison, one of them sen- 
tenced to die on August 19. We renew our 
support of the Scottsboro Defense Committee, 
of which the N.A.A.C.P. is a member, to the 
end that these boys may be wholly freed of 
punishment or blame for a crime of which the 
entire world knows them to be wholly 
innocent. 


Public Health and Medical Services 


Discrimination and neglect of Negro citizens 
by city, county, state and Federal medical 
health agencies constitute taxation’ without 
representation. We pledge ourselves to an 
active and sustained fight to make available 
the facilities of each hospital, medical school 
and health agency, through direct political 
action and aroused public opinion, to the end 
that identical opportunities in medical serv- 
ices be furnished to all citizens. 


IV. SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL 
RELATIONS 


The Association views with alarm the de- 
liberate fomenting by certain nations of racial 
antagonism and the fostering of excessive na- 
tionalism through the spreading of unscientific 
and fantastic propaganda concerning racial 
superiority. We condemn the cruel suppression 
of races in Germany and the anti-Semitic cam- 
paigns in Poland, Roumania and other Euro- 
pean countries, as well as the suppression of 
minority groups in all lands. We urge the 
adoption of a new neutrality policy by the 
United States government which will not 
throttle the activities of those nations against 
which aggressive warfare is being waged or 
militate against those nations supporting the 
principles found in the American ideal of 
democracy. 


James Weldon Johnson 


It is with infinite sorrow and shock that our 
conference was opened with the news of the 
tragic and untimely death of our beloved 
former secretary, James Weldon Johnson. We 
extend our heartfelt sympathy to Mrs. John- 
son and wish for her speedy recovery. 

We urge upon branches of the N.A.A.C.P. 
and all friends of Mr. Johnson that some 
tangible means be devised to perpetuate his 
memory through strengthening of the cause 
to which, for more than two decades, he de- 
voted his brilliant talents and untiring efforts. 


The Crisis 





R. D. Evans 


To the family of our Board Member, R. D. 
Evans, of Waco, Tex., who like Mr. Johnson, 
was killed on June 26th, in an automobile 
accident, we extend our deep sympathy in this 
hour of sorrow. 


Clarence Darrow 


Since last we met our beloved friend and 
great humanitarian, Clarence Darrow, has 
died. We remember with gratitude the magni- 
ficent fights he made, as in the Sweet Case 
in Detroit, for the Negro, and for his un- 
ceasing and uncompromising advocacy of jus- 
tice to Negro Americans. We mourn his pass- 
ing but we shall always remember with grati- 
tude all that he did during his lifetime to help 
wipe out racial prejudice. 


Whereas the officers of, the National office 
have given much unselfish and self-sacrificing 
service to the cause of the N.A.A.C.P., and 
have carried on the fight on all fronts with 
unswerving determination, and were very suc- 
cessful in the various campaigns, be it 

Resolved, That the whole-hearted thanks go 
out to them from the members of this confer- 
ence. Be it further 

Resolved, That we continue our whole sup- 
port to the cause they so nobly advanced. 


Respectfully submitted, 
Committee on Resolutions 


(Signed) C. A. Hansberry, Chicago, 
Chairman; Rev. Harold Tolliver, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa.; Lee B. Furgerson, Waterloo, 
Iowa; George W. Goodman, Boston, 
Mass.; Miss Margaret Newell, St. Louis, 
Mo.; William Vaughn, Kimberly, W. Va.; 
A. T. Williams, Pontiac, Mich.; Isadore 
Martin, Philadelphia, Pa.; T. G. Nutter, 
Charleston, W. Va.; Mrs. Enolia P. Mc- 
Millan, Baltimore, Md.; Rev. E. P. Dixon, 
Jersey City, N. J.; E. L. Snyder, Hous- 
ton, Texas; C. H. Calloway, Kansas City, 
Mo.; Mrs. Erma A. Harris, Richmond, 
Va., Secretary; Mrs. Memphis T. Garri- 
son, Gary, W. Va.; Dr. James J. McClen- 
don, Detroit, Mich.; Herbert Francois, 
Ypsilanti, Mich.; R. J. Simmons, Duluth, 
Minn.; Clarence Smith, Toledo, Ohio; 
Harry Greene, Philadelphia, Pa.; Miss 
Tracy E. Baker, Baton Rouge, La.; Miss 
Gertrude Allen, Columbus, O.; Miss 
Amelia Himmel, Detroit, Mich.; Barbee 
William Durham, Columbus, O.; Miss 
Lucille Bonnett, San Antonio, Tex. ; Clyde 
A. Liggin, Louisville, Ky.; Rev. James H. 
Robinson, New York City; Miss Frances 
Williams, New York City; Dr. Charles 
H. Thompson, Washington, D. C.; Dr. 
N. C. McPherson, Nashville, Tenn.; 
Gloster Current, Detroit, Mich.; Miss 
Frances Jones, Greensboro, N. C.; Miss 
Virginia Anderson, Brooklyn, N. Y.; 
W. J. Williams, Jackson, Miss.; Mrs. 
Samaten Johnson, Oklahoma City, Okla- 
10ma. 


GAVAGAN NAMES LAD 
TO NAVAL ACADEMY 


Congressman Joseph A. Gavagan of 
the 21st congressional district of New 
York city on August 15 nominated Elli- 
otte Williams, 435 Convent avenue, for 
midshipman in the United States naval 
academy at Annapolis, Md. Repre- 
sentative Gavagan was the sponsor of 
the Gavagan feceral anti-lynching bill 
which was passed by the House of Rep- 
resentatives April 15, 1937. 












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September, 1938 


N.A.A.C.P. Youth Council News 


Lawyer Aids Job Campaign 


Raymond Pace Alexander, noted 
Philadelphia lawyer, is cooperating with 
the youth council in its job campaign. 
According to Miss Frances Gardner, 
president, Mr. Alexander is giving his 
services and is helping the group inter- 
view managers of stores where Negro 
clerks are not employed. 


Talladega Hears Walter White 


The Talladega college chapter pre- 
sented Walter White, executive secre- 
tary of the association in a chapel pro- 
gram during the early spring. Mr. 
White spoke on the subject, “Educa- 
tional Opportunities in the South.” 


The chapter sponsored a series of ed- 
ucational programs during the past 
school year. Several chapel discussions 
were devoted to the anti-lynching bill. 
Misses Hilda A. Davis and Bessie Lewis 
were the speakers. In cooperation with 
the Alpha Beta Chapter of Alpha Phi 
Alpha fraternity the chapter presented 
a court filibuster which outlined in a 
very graphic fashion the outstanding 
figures in the anti-lynching fight. 


Fisk Chapter Reports 


One of the first youth groups to 
respond to the appeal to examine public 
school textbooks for distortion of facts 
about the Negro and the omission of 
his contributions to American civiliza- 
tion was the Fisk University college 
chapter. A report of the findings will 
appear in a subsequent issue. 

A protest was registered with a Nash- 
ville radio station against the use of 
derogatory language in reference to the 
Negro. 

A drive was made to get books for 
the Pearl high school library in Nash- 
ville. 


The largest department store in Nash- 
ville refused Negro children the privilege 
of enjoying certain Christmas displays 
in the store. This action was immedi- 
ately protested by the college chapter. 
As a result of this, the chapter has 
planned for one of its fall ventures, the 
study of civil rights of Negroes in the 
community and the many violations of 
the same. 

The chapter presented many interest- 
ing and outstanding speakers in ‘their 
series of chapel programs, among whom 
were, Mrs. Addison Cutler, who gave 
the history of the N.A.A.C.P.; Mrs. 
Vivian Osborne-Marsh, who spoke on 


“Lobbying for the Anti-Lynching Bill ;” 
Dr. Charles S. Johnson, who spoke on 
“Educational Inequalities in the South ;” 
Dr. Bent of the staff of Meharry Med- 
ical College, who spoke on “Health Ed- 
ucation of the Negro;” John W. Work, 
from the Music Department at Fisk, on 
“The Development of Music at Fisk, 
and its Social Aspects;”’ Dr. Ch’AO- 
Ting Chi, who spoke on “China’s strug- 
gle and Its Relation to Minority 
Groups.” 


Chicago Plans Leadership 
Training Conference 


The Chicago youth council is mak- 
ing plans for a leadership training 
conference in the early fall. According 
to Mrs. Frances T. Moseley, the adviser 
and Miss Thelma Johnson, president, 
the council will write members of other 
youth organizations to meet with them. 
How to attack the problems of Negro 
youth will be emphasized in the confer- 
ence. 


The youth council members are con- 
tinuing to circulate a petition to the 
President of the United States, request- 
ing his support of the fight to pass the 
anti-lynching bill. By fall, they plan to 
have thousands of signatures ready to 
be sent to Washington when the opening 
gun is fired in the continued fight for 
the passage of federal anti-lynching 
legislation. 


Seek Cafeterias in Schools 


Thomas Hewin of Richmond, Va., is 
aiding the youth council in its fight for 
cafeterias in the colored public schools. 
According to Naomi Wilder, president 
of the group, articles are being printed 
in the local newspapers exposing the 
conditions with regard to cafeteria fa- 
cilities in the colored schools. A co- 
operative survey is being made, which 
upon its completion will be presented to 
the school board. 


Two-Day Conference 


The Montclair, New Jersey, youth 
council held its annual youth conference 
the last week-end in May. More than 
150 representatives of youth groups in 
North Jersey were present to discuss 
various aspects of the Negro youth 
problem. 


Included among the speakers were, 
Rev. Wm. Lloyd Imes, pastor of St. 
James Presbyterian Church in New 
York City; Lester B. Granger, former 


307 


director of workers education of the 
National Urban League, New York 
City; Judge James S. Watson of New 
York City; Ben Johnson, captain of 
Columbia University track team, and 
Jimmy Hefbert, New York University 
track star. 

Oyllon Rice was chairman of the con- 
ference planning committee, Jean Gregg, 
is president, and J. N. Williams, ad- 
viser. 


Charter Applications 


During the past month, applications 
for youth council charters have come 
from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Stockton 
and Sacramento, California, Charleston, 
West Virginia (Junior youth council), 
Portland, Oregon, and Springfield, Il- 
linois. Organization committees are 
being formed in Providence, Rhode 
Island, under the direction of Joseph 
G. LeCount, senior branch president, 
and in Asheville, North Carolina, under 
the direction of Mrs. L. B. Michael. 


Youth Awakes 


(Continued from page 289) 


was launched. Today, there are 101 of- 
ficially chartered youth councils and 
college chapters in 26 states. In addition, 
there are 52 youth council and college 
chapter organization committees. 


The 27th annual conference held in 
Baltimore in 1936 saw the first youth 
section of a national conference of the 
Association. The response of youth to 
the N.A.A.C.P.’s appeal for cooperation 
was immediate. There were 218 youth 
delegates from 10 states and 32 cities. 
Out of the discussions in this youth sec- 
tion was created the national youth pro- 
gram. 


The youth councils and college chap- 
ters work with the senior branches and 
the national office of the Association in 
four specific areas ; for equal educational 
opportunities, for equal economic oppor- 
tunities, for civil liberties, and for physi- 
cal security—against lynching. Specific 
tools used to achieve these objectives 
are: the education of public opinion, the 
ballot, the courts, the enactment of legis- 
lation, and interracial organization. 

In the national youth program are pe- 
riodic national youth activities built 
around the major objectives of the Asso- 
ciation, observed by all youth groups at 
the same time periods. Youth members 
attempt to undergird these periodic na- 
tional emphases with a strong, well- 
coordinated youth program meeting local 
youth needs (within the scope and the 
program of the Association). 


(Continued on next page) 








308 


Lynching 


In February of each year, under the 
leadership of J. G. St. Clair Drake, in- 
structor of sociology at Dillard univer- 
sity, New Orleans, Louisiana, youth 
councils and college chapters hold their 
annual National Youth Demonstration 
Against Lynching. 


Education 


American Education Week, sponsored 
annually by the National Education As- 
sociation, is the occasion for nation-wide 
youth mass meetings against educational 
inequalities. These are held for the pur- 
pose of stimulating an awareness of the 
inequalities of educational opportunities 
which Negro youth face, locally as well 
as nationally, and of the educational pro- 
gram of the N.A.A.C.P. as a basis for 
activity and for a greater support of 
the Association’s program. Parent 
Teacher organizations and other com- 
munity groups cooperate with the youth 
councils in cities and towns, while on 
college campuses the faculties and stu- 
dent bodies participate in student meet- 
ings under the direction of college chap- 
ters. 


For two successive years, through a 
nation-wide radio broadcast, the atten- 
tion of American educators, public offi- 
cials, parents, and other citizens have 
been focused on these inequalities and 
the need of their elimination. Concur- 
rently with national campaigns youth 
councils have initiated local educational 
activities. 


Jobs 


In the field of equal economic op- 
portunities, youth councils and college 
chapters nationally cooperate in the pro- 


motion of Vocational Opportunity Week. 
Locally, youth groups are attempting to 
open up avenues of employment and 
eliminate discrimination in jobs and re- 
lief. 


Civil Liberties 


Youth councils and college chapters 
have continually cooperated with senior 
branches and the national office in the 
numerous legal defense cases of the 
Association and in the fight to free the 
Scottsboro youths. Efforts are being 
made by youth councils to secure fair 
municipal recreational facilities, as in 
parks and playgrounds, to have repre- 
sentation on the municipal housing com- 
mittees, to eliminate segregation and dis- 
crimination in theaters, restaurants, and 
other public places. 

Looking towards the 1938 elections 
and the 1940 presidential election, 
N.A.A.C.P. youth leaders are offering 
their assistance in drives to register the 
unregistered voters, and to stimulate the 
registered voters to use the ballot. The 
youth sections of the annual conferences 
offer the opportunity where youth mem- 
bers face their problems together, seek 
for solutions, decide upon methods ot 
approach, and devise ways and means ot 
building a more vital national youth pro- 
gram and a stronger membership. At 
the youth section of the 28th annual 
conference in 1937 at Detroit, Michigan, 
there were 343 youth delegates in at- 
tendance from twenty states and 
forty-four cities. The South was well 
represented, for delegates came from 
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, 
Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and 
Oklahoma, as well as from northern and 
northwestern states, representing youth 
in factories, on farms, in mills and in 
schools. 


Pledge of N.A.A.C.P. Youth 


We believe in the advancement of Negroes— 


Not in a spirit of racialism, 


But as a contribution to a common American culture. 


We believe in fundamental social and economic change— 
Leading us into a new cooperative commonwealth, 
Dedicated to freedom, equality, and security of all. 


We believe that to struggle for the rights of Negroes— 


Is to fight fascist terror, 


And to help in building the new society. 


We believe in preserving and extending democracy— 
As a bulwark against fascism, 
As an aid to social change. 


We, therefore, pledge ourselves to fight, relentlessly— 


With the ballot, 

In the courts, 

With education of public opinion, 
And the enactment of legislation: 


Through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
For equal opportunities in all spheres, 

For protection and extension of civil liberties, 

And against the insane fury of the mob. 





The Crisis 


Through the channel of _ the 
N.A.A.C.P., youth are uniting and work- 
ing, according to the N.A.A.C.P. youth 
pledge, “To secure the fundamental con- 
stitutional rights for twelve millions of 
American Negroes, in order that they 
may make a more significant contribu- 
tion to the building of a more desirable 
social order.” 


Labor Trouble 
(Continued from page 288) 


capitalists. The United Fruit Company 
of America, the Standard Fruit and 
Steamship Company and Elders and 
Fyfe Limited control the export market 
and dictate the price of bananas. They 
work hand in glove with the big plan- 
ters who are organizing the Jamaica 
Banana Producers Association, which is 
subsidized by the Government. 


Appeal to British Workers 


“Tell England the conditions on this 
island are dreadful. In Trelawney there 
are workers earning only ninepence a 
day. Here in Kingston there are slums 
which make the city an appalling refuse 
heap. In my own district the workers 
are forced to live in kitchens and lava- 
tories. They have abandoned them now 
to live in the open air.” This pathetic 
appeal of the strikers’ leader, epito- 
mizes the abject poverty and _ social 
degradation of the toiling masses of 
Jamaica and must not go unanswered. 
The Labor Opposition in Parliament 
and the Trades Union Congress must 
raise their voices and protest against 
these terrible conditions existing in the 
Colonial Empire. They must demand a 
living wage and better social conditions 
for the Jamaican workers and other 
dark-skinned toilers in the colonies. For 
let it never be forgotten that “Labor in 
the white skin can never free itself 
while labor in the black is branded.” 


In Memoriam 
(Continued from page 294) 


had been beaten up by a mob of office- 
holders in Texas, resigned and James 
Weldon Johnson was elected as secre- 
tary,—many people sincerely believing 
that he was too much of a poet, writer 
and dreamer to fill the position success- 
fully. But he soon proved full capacity 
for the position. Under his leadership 
the first anti-lynching bill was voted 
upon in the Congress of the nation. It 
was known as the Dyer Anti-lynching 
bill, named for the congressman from 
St. Louis, Missouri, who introduced it, 


Septem 


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September, 1938 


and who made a nation-wide fight for 
it. This bill was passed in the lower 
house and beaten only by a filibuster in 
the Senate, as two of its successor bills 
have been beaten. But it did something 
to lynching, and that evil has never since 
that year been what it was always be- 
fore that time. Lynching dropped about 
50% while the bill was being debated. 

As his song—“Lift Every Voice”— 
will keep him best known to the masses 
of colored Americans, another work of 
his, the books of “Negro Spirituals,” 
will keep his name best known to the 
masses of all Americans and English- 
speaking peoples. He wrote the bril- 
liant introduction to this musical com- 
pilation which was made by his musical 
brother and Lawrence Brown. 

After about ten years as secretary of 
the National Association, James Weldon 
Johnson resigned to devote himself 
further to literary work and to accept 
a professorship in Fisk University, old- 
est southern Negro university at Nash- 
ville, Tennessee. 

Before he became an officer of the 
National Association, he had travelled 
abroad. In Paris a young Frenchman, 
who had become a friend and chum with 
him, once remarked timidly: “They say 
over here that the Americans once 
burned a man alive!”"—James Weldon 
Johnson later told me: “I would have 
given my right arm if I could have told 
him: ‘Yes, but ONLY ONCE’.” Like 
many Negroes who travel, he had a 
pride for his country, in spite of its 
shortcomings. 

He produced many useful, and some 
notable books, among them being “The 
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” 
“The Book of American Negro Poetry,” 
“The Book of Negro Spirituals,” “God’s 
Trombones,” and “Along This Way,’— 
the last-named being an interesting auto- 
biography. 

He was 67 years old when he died, 
but he was in good health, so that his 
death seemed untimely. But we do not 
know,—death is not always an evil. If 
Abraham Lincoln had lived three dec- 
ades longer, would the 19th century 
have come to regard him as the topmost 
man of the modern world? The strug- 
gles, the fights, the bickerings and the 
recessions from his best ideals would not 
only have pained his years, but would 
have sullied or clouded for a long time 
his true greatness. 

If Marius had died when after turn- 
ing back the barbarians from Italy, he 
returned to Rome, if he had been struck 
down as he moved in triumph in his 
chariot, he would have died a greater 
Roman than Caesar. But the subsequent 
vicissitudes of ‘his life wore down ‘his 
moral and social stature among men. 

If Napoleon had died at Waterloo, it 
would certainly have not lessened the 
glory of Napoleon. If the poor man 


who threatened King Edward the VIII 
of England, now Duke of Windsor, had 
actually assassinated the King, that poor 
man would have been more severely 
punished but he would have saved the 
ideal of the most promising emperor of 
the world’s greatest empire. 

Who knows whether to weep when 
Fate strikes? 

James Weldon Johnson would not 
choose “mourners” for his funeral. He 
would think of ex-comrades and grateful 
people going forward with the work in 
which he so honorably shared for so 
long a time. 

Natural as they are, there is no logic 
in tears; no plan or purpose in grief. 
Men learned to sorrow because they 
knew not what else to do. We now know 
something better to do than to sorrow 
merely, when we lose a great fellow 
worker. There’s still the work to be 
done. 


Nation’s Tribute 
(Continued from page 299) 


freedom and importance in American 
life. 


New York Post 


James Weldon Johnson, who was 
killed Sunday in a grade-crossing acci- 
dent in Maine, was, by whatever mea- 
sure, an extraordinary man. It prob- 
ably is not too much to say that he was 
the most distinguished Negro in the 
United States. A man of great per- 


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309 


sonal dignity, he fought over the long 
years—never extravagantly but always 
with reasonableness—for the just 
recognition of the.black race. He 
believed in the ability of the American 
Negro to produce genuinely original art 
and literature, and he wrote and spoke 
persuasively of the contributions of the 
black man, particularly in the fields of 
poetry and music. He was a shrewd 
politician, and rebelled at the idea that 
the Negro should be used as the catspaw 
of any one political party. Negroes 
everywhere, as well as every white 
American, have every reason to be 
proud of this long and useful life. . 
There was nothing cringing or apolo- 
getic in his make-up; likewise there was 
nothing brash. He was a scholarly 
gentleman whose name will be remem- 
bered as long as there are records of 
the romantic and always poignant story 


- of the black man in America. He under- 


stood this story, this struggle, in all its 
sadness and all its bravery. 


New York Herald-Tribune 


Poet and writer, he did not 
enclose himself in literature as many a 
white writer of similar talents has done. 
As an educator, as secretary for the 
National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People, and as a poli- 
tical figure he devoted himself to the 
betterment of his people. 

This activity was conducted on two 


(Continued on next page) 


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BOOK NEWS and REVIEWS 


SOUTHWAYS by Erskine Caldwell. 
Viking Press, New York. 206 
pages. $2.50. 


Erskine Caldwell scores again. This latest 
work is further testimony to his outstanding 
and inimitable ability as a writer of the short 
story. 

Mr. Caldwell again writes about that section 
of the country he knows best. He bares the 
stark realities of a section that traditionally 
and fictionally has been surrounded by an aura 
of romance, happy and carefree people. 
Though there is an occasional glimpse of 
warmth and humor, miseries and inhumanities 
are etched in living scenes that stab the 
heart. With a single word, with the turn of 
a phrase, this artist deftly carries home his 
point. 

Strange people these Caldwell characters. To 


one who does not intimately know this sec- | 


tion of the country, the characters seem of an 
alien stripe. Yet, they are definitely American- 
born of a conviction unreal, but complete. 

There are sixteen stories in this book. Some 
of them are so short that one gains only a 
vivid character delineation. But each one 
carries a message. 

“The Negro in the Well” is a form of grisly 
humor. A Negro who unwittingly stumbled 
into a deep well, and whose life is unques- 
tionably in danger, cannot help getting ex- 
cited and calling spiritedly to his hounds as 
he hears them yelping along the trail of an 
elusive coon. : 

“Hamrick’s Polar Bear” is a light theme 
about a beast of dinosaurian proportions whose 
periodic appearance caused panic through the 
Georgia countryside one abysmally cold winter. 
When spring had come, the residents were 
prone to call Hamrick,—the dispenser of the 
tale-—an unadulterated liar. But later in the 
spring the bear turned up again. The track 
records set by unfortunate inhabitants who 
glimpsed this bear foraying in their yards, or 
snifing at their outhouses, are legend. 

“Nine Dollars Worth of Mumble” is the old 
story of “conjur dust” being used by a simple 
wit to win the uncertain hand of a strong- 
willed maid. Both the man and the conjuror’s 
incantations fail. 

On the tragic side there are several stories. 
One is, “New Cabin.” Another is “A Knife to 
Cut Corn Bread With,” a story of a man, 
made lame by an accident, who is slowly 
starving to death because of his inability to 
work. 

In “Southways,” Erskine Caldwell brings to 
his readers, poignant stories of how the other 
half lives. 

E,. Frepertc Morrow 


TOMMY LEE FEATHERS by Ed 
Bell. Farrar & Rinehart, New 
York. 308 pp. $2.50 


“Tommy Lee Feathers” is just another 
book about the moving world of Negrotown, 


MAKE $3—S$6 DAILY 


Wanted representatives to handle the great book 
HUMAN SIDE OF A PEOPLE. Fast Selling. 
Historical-Educational. Settles the ovestion ‘‘Negroes 
or Colored People’ Price $3. Send only $2.25 for 
outfit and sample book. 


15,000 copies sold to both races 


PHILEMON CO. 


224 W. 135th St. New York, N. Y. 


a small weatherbeaten community in Tennes- 
see. It is an attempt to record the passion, 
humor, rhythm and gaiety of this miniature 
Harlem. 


Tommy Lee Feathers, star footballer of the 
local athletic club, is the book’s raison d’etre. 
His superb playing strikes terror in the hearts 
of all opposing clubs: When the local team 
wins, it is feted and praised without stint. 
When the team loses, it is damned and heckied 
—Tommy Lee Feathers particularly. The star 
player meets a tragic death on the football 
field when he is shot down during a brilliant 
runback of a punt by an unknown gambler 
who has staked his all on a rival team. 

For light summer reading, this book serves 
admirably. 


E.F.M. 


Nation's Tribute 
(Continued from page 309) 


fronts—the preparation of Negroes for 
an increased share of public responsibil- 
ity and the struggle against discrimina- 
tion and oppression. 

He will be missed, not only by the 
members of his own race, but by all those 
who have welcomed the emergence of 
the Negro into a place of greater free- 
dom and importance in American life. 


Philadelphia, Pa., Record 


The Crisis 


MOTOR FIRM NAMES . 
COLORED SALES MANAGER 


Homer Roberts of Chicago was pro- 
moted in July to be general sales man-| 
ager of the S. and L. motor company, 
3812 Wabash avenue. The S. and Ly 
company is the oldest Ford dealer in the} 
city of Chicago. Mr. Roberts has been) 
connected with the company for a num." 
ber of years after many years of ex- 
perience as a motor car dealer and sales-) 
man. He organized the Roberts motor! 
company in Kansas City, Mo., and later! 
the Roberts-Campbell motor company) 
and operated as a full dealer for Hup-) 
mobile and Rickenbacker cars. He has 
won numerous prizes, bonuses, honors 
and medals for his salesmanship achieve- 
ments, both nationally and locally. 


AFRO PHOTOGRAPH 


The photograph of Donald Gaines 
Murray, graduate from the law school 
of the University of Maryland, which 
appeared in the August CRIsIs, was 
copyrighted by the Baltimore Afro- 
American and was used by permission 
of that newspaper. 


| Letters from Readers | 


To tHE Eprror oF THE Crisis :—Our little 
family enjoys THE Crisis more and more. 
Here’s hoping your subscriptions will increase 
by leaps and bounds so you can do more and 
more good work. WALTER PRICE 
Hartford, Conn. 


Spend Where You Can Work! 


INSURE WITH NEGRO COMPANIES 


They Provide: SECURITY for Loved Ones, JOBS for 
Trained Negroes ar.d ECONOMIC POWER for the Group 


READ AND ACT 
The National Negro Insurance Association reported for 1936: 


—Assets of $17,434,075.07 

—Income of $15,061,347.72 

—dInsurance in force: $288,963,070.00 
—Policies in force: 1,643,125 
—Ordinary Insurance: $80,106,234 
—Industrial Insurance: $181,961,766.63. 


—Health and Accident Insurance: 
$26,895,069.37 

—Employment: 8,150 Negroes 

—Policies issued and Revived in 1936: 
$174,112,773.00 

—Increased business, 1936: $65,645,466 

—Increase in policies, 1936: 251,047 


PLAY SAFE—IJnsure with THESE Companies 


GOLDEN STATE MUTUAL LIFE 
INSURANCE COMPANY — 


Los Angeles, California 
LIFE, RETIREMENT INCOME 
and DISABILITY CONTRACTS 
Beecutive Officers: 
Geo. A. Beavers, Jr. 


Wm. Nickerson, Jr. Norman 0. Houston 


A Policy for Every Member of the Family 
Old Age Benefit—Child's Educational 
Retirement—Health & Accident—Endowments 
ALL MODERN—ALL RELIABLE 


North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance 


Company @ Durham, North Carolina 
C. C. Spaulding, President 


Mention THE CRISIS to Our Advertisers 


GREAT LAKES MUTUAL 
INSURANCE COMPANY 


Life Insurance For Every Member of the Family 


FREE VISITING NURSE 
Service to Policy Holders 


Home Office—DETROIT, MICHIGAN 


VICTORY MUTUAL 
LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 


5607 South State Street, Chicago 
2303 Seventh Avenue, New York City 
BUY INSURANCE WHERE YOU CAN WORE! 
P. M. H. SAVORY
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